WEBVTT - From the Vault: Time Traveler Zero, Part 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.240 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.400 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.400 Time for an episode from the Vault. This one originally 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:19.279 aired December, and it's called Time Traveler zero Part two, 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.119 the follow up to last Saturday's episode. So we're picking 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.840 up again with our exploration of the origins of the 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:31.479 idea of time travel and time travelers. Let's jump right in. 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:46.880 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.080 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:54.560 we are picking up with our our second episode about 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.880 time travel as a concept, time travel as it appears, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:03.680 especially in Fick Shan and The Human Imagination. The first 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.959 episode was Time Traveler zero Part one. Uh, then we 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:09.840 had a little break and did another episode, and now 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.920 we're back with Time Traveler zero Part two. Now I 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.160 thought this was going to be in one, but I 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.120 guess we wait. Now we're already in twenty one. I 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.319 get all confused about years. I thought it was going 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.000 to be next year, but uh yeah, yeah, but then 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.000 we ended up shuffling some stuff around so here we 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.880 are earlier than we thought. Yeah, yeah, so we were 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.280 just traveling back and forth between past and future, uh 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:39.759 though within the the artificial confines of of our publication schedule. Now, 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.679 in the last episode, we talked about some of the 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:49.840 earliest possible appearances of forms of time travel in mythology 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.600 and literature, such as in the Mahabarata and in some 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.640 say Japanese folk tales, where the way you could probably 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.320 describe the time travel mechanism is something like time dial action. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:04.880 So uh so, for example, the the story of King 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.240 Rivada and his daughter Ravatti in the in the Sanskrit 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.400 epics that would you know, they travel up to the 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.280 Brahma realm and they stay there for a few minutes. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.760 But then they find because time moves differently in the 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.720 Brahma realm than it does down on Earth, millions of 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.040 years have passed and whoops, like that, their entire civilization 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.920 is gone and it's on to a different age. But 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.160 I think today we're going to look at a similar 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.680 but slightly different mechanism that appears in the history of 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:38.000 time travel mythology and literature, which is sleeping into the future. Yeah, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.320 and this is this is one of the concepts that's 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.760 discussed in Paul J. Nahan's book Time Machines Time Travel 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.000 in Physics, Metaphysics and Science Fiction, which is a book 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.400 that I I cited in the first episode and we'll 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.119 continue to decide from this if you if you're looking 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.320 for a good time travel book that deals with like 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:57.800 the concept of time travel but also gets into some 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.919 of the heavier scientific contemplations of the topic, it's a 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.440 great book to pick up. So Nan discusses the time 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.959 travel by dreaming was once a common literary device, and yeah, 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.639 that it's closely related to this idea of sleeping into 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.280 the future. The and and and this is something I 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.000 love because this is something that we can all relate 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.480 to because we all do it every night, right, Well, 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:22.520 we lay our head down on the pillow, and you know, 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.280 there might be a little bit of struggle getting the 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.120 time machine activated. But once the once sleep mode is 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:32.720 in place, um, you were able to skip forward in time. 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.040 Now depending on how you sleep in the nature of 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:38.640 your dreams. Uh, you know, not every journey is going 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.960 to be the same. Some of these journeys are a 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.560 little round about, um, you know, where suddenly we have 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.040 to you know, stop and um how to to to 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.200 steal a joke from Mitch Hedberg, we have to let 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.640 um uh build a toy playing with our boss or 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:58.480 something before getting to our destination. Uh with my landlord 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.680 was go kart with the land that Um, yeah, it 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:04.560 say so. There might be some distractions on the way, 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.280 but when you wake up, it will be tomorrow, it 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.200 will be the next day, it will be the next morning. Though. 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.800 One thing that's interesting about that is, uh that I 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.320 think if you ever have the experience of going under 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:21.599 general anesthesia and being able to compare that experience to 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.479 the normal experience of sleep, at least for me, and 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.760 I think this is pretty common for others as well, 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.440 the comparison to anesthesia makes you aware that you are 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.960 sort of semi conscious of the passage of time during 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.479 sleep in a way that you're not really for the 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.160 like the pure deep unconsciousness of anesthesia, where I mean 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.080 under the drugs, it's just sort of like, you know, 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.040 you snap your fingers and then you're awake hours later, 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.800 or at least that that's sort of what I recall. 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.120 But with with sleeping, you know, you're not really conscious 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.920 of the passage of time, but you're you're sort of 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:59.000 maybe liminally conscious that something is going on. Time is 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.919 somehow passing, it's not quite as much of a pause 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.960 and then play as as anesthesia is. Oh, I agree, absolutely, 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:09.240 That's been my experience. Um. I guess when you sleep 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.240 and when you dream, time gets weird. Uh. And it 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.719 may it may feel like it passes very quickly, but 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.960 when you go under anesthesia, UM, time just disappears completely. 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:20.920 It is, like you said, just the like the snap 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.040 of a finger. Um. So, so yeah, that's something important 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.839 to keep in mind. But but but obviously, you know, 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.599 people for you know, thousands and thousands of years would 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.320 have been privy to this, this weird situation. And maybe 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.360 it's not even that weird because it does happen every night. 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.719 Though I would argue that the world of dreams always 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.920 offers a little weirdness. Uh. People would be familiar with this, um, 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.520 this phenomenon. And so we see a play out in 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.839 various stories. Uh. Probably the most famous of these, um 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:51.839 still to this day is it is going to be 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.880 Washington Irving's eighteen nineteen story Rip van Winkle, in which 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.560 a man sleeps his way twenty years into the future. Now, 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:01.919 of course this this would become a pretty standard trope 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.840 of of of science fiction, especially when you get into 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.839 the realm of suspended animation. Uh. This, of course was 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.760 parodied in the long running sci fi animated series Futurama, 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:19.359 where Fry essentially sleeps into the future via cryogenics. But 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.320 you all also find it in various other works. One 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.320 that Naan mentions is um it was is H. G. 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:30.600 Wells When the Sleeper Awakes from eight which is is 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.400 not what I've read, not when I was familiar with. 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.039 But this one involves a sleep jaunt from the year 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.760 eighteen seven to the year so you wake up and 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.000 there are some giant flying machines that look kind of 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.040 like skeletal butterflies or something. Oh yeah, there's some wonderful 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.960 illustrations from this that I was able to look up 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.479 that I believe we're part of the original published story. 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.000 And yeah, they're black and white, and yeah, there's like 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.400 they're like enormous structures. They're these flying machines that look 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.159 like the they look kind of like the ornithopter is 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.760 that the Wookies are using in the Star Wars movies. Uh, 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.320 really cool looking stuff. There was also a seventeen seventy 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.360 one tale by L. S. Mercy Or about an eighteenth 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.040 century sleeper who awakes in the twenty five century. And 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.640 I just have to say, I love how so many 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.640 of these time travel yarns they're just really jumping out there. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.320 You know, they're going, uh, you know, hundreds of years 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.120 into the future. I wonder again, I think I contemplated 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:29.920 this a little bit in our last episode, like, what 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.800 does it say about a given time period, how far 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:38.560 into the future time their fictional time travelers are going. Now, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.440 one of the things that Nan points out is that 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.920 sleeping into the future is quite an old trope, and uh, 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.040 it might well be the oldest time travel concept in 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.440 human storytelling. I don't think any of the examples we're 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:53.600 looking at would go back farther than the Maha Barta, 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.320 which did not involve sleeping and was more of the 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.840 time dilation version. But but certainly it us go way back. 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.760 I'm going to cite an example of sleeping into the 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.720 future from the ancient world in just a minute here. Well, 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.720 the one that the name shares is from around six 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.440 hundred ce Gregory of Tours told a story titled The 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.720 Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, who traveled three hundred and seventy 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:22.600 two years via sleep whoa sometimes known as the Seven Sleepers. 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:24.960 This is a medieval tale told about a group of 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.920 Christian youths who hide in a cave outside of of 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.400 the city around to fifty c in order to escape 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.439 Roman persecution, and they emerge. I think that the exact 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.280 number of years they sleep varies. I've seen three hundred, 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.600 I've seen three seventy two. But they they wake up 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.120 and they find that the that everything has changed. The 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.160 city is now a city of believers and um in 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.240 a in A version of this tale is also found 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.600 in the Qoran. Now that's interesting because it shows one 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:58.160 of the things that time travel is sometimes used to 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.800 do in literature and in folk tales, which is to 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.760 uh to sort of vindicate a person's reputation or point 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.000 of view, to to show sort of like, yep, the 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.880 future acknowledged they were right. So these people go and 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.680 fall asleep in a cave as a persecuted minority and 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.720 then come out and their side is finally vindicated and 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.599 has taken over. Yeah, and and I guess on on 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.240 a simpler level, it's it's about using the time travel 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.040 story to compare the past and the future or the 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.800 past in the present, whichever compare two points of time 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.920 and have some a character or characters involved as the 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.240 bridge between the two that can provide a point of view. Yeah, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.319 that's right. So the stories allow a level of perspective 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.960 that doesn't occur in reality. That you know that you 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.600 can see two things that a person in reality can 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.600 can never see both of two different ages. Uh. But 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.400 I found an example I thought was really interesting because 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:57.840 it turns out sleeping into the future actually goes back 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:02.160 even farther than the the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. I 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.040 wanted to talk about a really interesting example I came 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:09.040 across in the stories of the first century b CE 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:13.280 Jewish scholar and a legend miracle worker named Honey the 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.040 Circle Maker. Now, I think his best historians can tell 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.079 Honey was a real person. This is not like a 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.880 purely legendary figure, though I think some of the accounts 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.160 of his life are obviously probably legendary. But but it 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:27.880 seems like this was a real guy. He was a 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:29.880 real scholar who lived in the first century b C. 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.319 He's not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or the Tanock. 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.359 He he lived after the books of the Tannock were composed, 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:40.480 but stories about him are preserved in the Talmud, the 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.440 collection of of Jewish law and uh commentary known as 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.800 the Talmud. And he gets his epithet the circle Maker 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.800 or sometimes the circle drawer from the most famous story 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.360 about his life, which which I will tell now. And 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.480 I'm summarizing the version that appears in the Babylonian Talmud, 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.280 which I found in full text English translation with a 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:09.120 nice searchable online version called the William Davidson Digital Edition 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.000 of the Talmud. It's got both English and modern Hebrew 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.680 side by side, so it looks like a very usable addition. 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.880 But anyway, the story of the most famous miracle goes 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.000 like this. So there's this Jewish scholar named Hony Uh 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.679 and he is living in a time of drought, and 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.240 the people come to him and ask Hony to pray 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.920 to God that rain might fall. And Hony seems very 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.920 confident that he's going to get results, because he tells 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:34.960 the people that they need to go and bring their 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.240 clay ovens inside because there's about to be so much 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.640 rain that the clay will dissolve. In the downpour. Yeah, 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.280 you don't want that happen. So Hony prays, but no 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.400 rain comes, and in response, Hony steps it up. So 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.880 he draws a circle in the dust on the ground, 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:55.079 and he stands inside the circle, and then he says, quote, 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.079 Master of the Universe, your children have turned to their 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.679 faces towards me, as I am a member of your household. 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.800 Therefore I take an oath by your great name that 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.640 I will not move from here until you have mercy 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:12.079 upon your children and answer their prayers for rain. And 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.120 apparently it works, because a little sprinkling of rain then begins, 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:21.000 but it's a weak rain. So Hony is not satisfied, 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.840 and he prays to God again, saying quote, I did 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.880 not ask for this, but for rain to fill the cisterns, 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.360 ditches and caves with enough water to last the entire year. 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:33.600 So then the rain picks up and it starts to 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:39.000 pour violently, mightily rushing rain. Uh. And Hony isn't quite 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.840 happy with this either, so he says, quote, I did 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.560 not ask for this damaging rain either, but for rain 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.280 of benevolence, blessing, and generosity. I kind of like that. 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.640 He's uh, He's kind of standing up to the Hebraic 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.880 God in a way that you know, you don't see 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.160 in in various other stories, certainly you don't see and say, 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.600 like the Book of job right, there's a very different attitude. Yeah, 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.920 with Tony here and and his sort of almost rudeness 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.480 with God. Is is something that does come up in 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.640 a controversy in the epilogue to the story. But just 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:14.160 to quickly finish the story, uh, the narrative says quote Subsequently, 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.680 the rains fell in their standard manner, but continued unabated, 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.240 filling the city with water until all of the Jews 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.480 exited the residential areas of Jerusalem and went to the 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.480 Tipple Mount due to the rain. So he calls for 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.400 rain and God provides it. But then there's sort of 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.440 an epilogue where there's like controversy about several things. First 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.720 of all, the people ask is it raining too much? 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.360 Should should Hony pray to God to make it stop now? 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.320 And they have a back and forth about that. But 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.400 then also it's the question is raised, you know, was 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.720 there kind of something wrong with the way Hony was 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.600 was nagging God for rain? Like the text actually the 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.600 English translation, I was looking at uses the word nag, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.079 but ultimately the scholars conclude that, you know, Hony is 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.319 okay because God responded to his please without repre manned, 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.320 And so it seems like Tony's relationship with God is good. Well, 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.200 he was like a member of his households. Yeah, exactly, 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.319 they go way back. So that's Hony the circle maker. 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.280 But how it becomes relevant to time travel is there 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:18.080 is actually a story of Hony sleeping into the future. Uh. 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.800 And this story is also from the Babylonian Talmud. It 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.560 is attributed to a Rabbi Johannon, and I just want 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.360 to read it here and then we can talk about 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.200 it a bit. Quote all the days of the life 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.680 of that righteous man Hony, he was distressed over the 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.560 meaning of this verse A song of a sense. When 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.840 the Lord brought back those who returned to Zion, we 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:44.680 were like those who dream Psalms one one. He said 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.600 to himself, is there really a person who can sleep 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.960 and dream for seventy years? How is it possible to 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:55.520 compare the seventy year exile in Babylonia to a dream? 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.000 One day he was walking along the road when he 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.200 saw a certain man planting a care u tree. Honey 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.240 said to him, this tree, after how many years will 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.920 it bear fruit? The man said to him, it will 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:11.080 not produce fruit until seventy years have passed. Honey said 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:13.480 to him, is it obvious to you that you will 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.120 live seventy years that you expect to benefit from this tree? 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.600 He said to him, that man himself found a world 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.600 full of carab trees, just as my ancestors planted for me, 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.200 I too, am planting for my descendants. Okay, so you 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.320 know it takes this tree seventy years to grow. He's 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.080 but he's not planting it hoping to reap the fruits himself. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.480 I guess these would be legum pods that grow off 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.280 of the carob tree. Um. You know, he's planting for 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.800 for future generations, his his descendants. But the story goes on. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.480 So it says Honey sat and ate bread. Sleep overcame him, 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.320 and he slept. A cliff formed around him, and he 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:55.040 disappeared from sight and slept for seventy years. When he awoke, 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.400 he saw a certain man gathering caribs from that tree. 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:01.520 Honey said to him, are you the one who planted 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.400 this tree? The man said to him, I am his 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.320 son's son. Honey said to him, I can learn from 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.600 this that I have slept for seventy years, And indeed 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.880 he saw his donkey had sired several herds during those 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.440 many years. Hony went home and said to the members 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.400 of the household, is the son of Hony the circle 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.840 Maker alive? They said to him, his son is no 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.080 longer with us, but his son's son is alive. He 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.520 said to them, I am Hony the circle Maker. They 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.400 did not believe him. They went to the study hall, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.560 where he heard the sages say about one scholar his halicott. 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.760 And I think this word means um like religious laws 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.960 or writings of or about religious laws. His halicott are 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.600 as enlightening and as clear as in the years of 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.480 Hony the Circle Maker. For when Hony would enter the 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.680 study hall, he would resolve for the sages any difficulty 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.400 they had. Hony said to them, I am he. But 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:02.960 they did not believe him and did not pay him 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:08.320 proper respect. Hony became very upset, prayed for mercy, and died. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.200 And then it offers a bit of commentary. Rava said, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.840 this explains the folk saying where when people say either 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.159 friendship or death as one who has no friends is 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:23.159 better off dead. Oh wow, I thought this was a 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.280 really interesting story. And so there are a bunch of 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.800 things about it. One is that it ties into a 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:33.080 common theme of sleeping into the future, which is the 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.640 passing away of everything that one cares about in the presence. 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.840 So Hony sleeps seventy years into the future, but he's 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.280 not confronted with You know, when we think of like 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.080 time travel and science fiction going into the future, a 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.040 lot of it is it is like people want to 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.879 see amazing new types of technology or some kind of 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.639 noticeable progress or or you know, or regress, you know, 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.960 something some kind of change in the world that is notable. 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.639 But but I don't think Honey really notices any um 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.639 change to the scenario of the world. There's nothing to 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:10.320 be amazed at. Instead, it's just that the unnoticed passage 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.639 of time is lost and life without your friends and 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.760 family is not worth living. Yeah, it's it's a nice 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.360 it's a nice message. Um. Yeah. But but it's interesting too, 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.240 Like you say that the world hasn't really changed. There's 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.359 no indication that technology has changed. Um, And I guess 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.399 for a lot of people throughout history that probably seemed 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.959 to be the case. I mean that the basic technology 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.320 you're using and your understanding of the world has not changed. 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.359 This is just the way things are. These are the 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.439 tools we have. The things that will change, and you 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.920 know that they'll change, will be um, you know, the 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:50.919 the lifespans of of a human activity. You know that 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.760 that people will will live and die and be born 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.840 and grow old. And then also you know that, uh, 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.840 there's a good chance that as as people live and die, 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.000 so will king's, so will rulers, and so there will 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.200 be the you know, the ob and flow of dynasties 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:11.479 as as well as wars and so forth. Right. Another 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.480 interesting thing I thought about this is that Hony gets 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:18.280 to see his own posthumous reputation as a scholar, which 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.919 apparently is going very strong. Like he goes and finds 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.800 in the study hall that people really appreciate the teachings 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.880 of him, of Hony the Circle Maker, but he can't 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.240 really enjoy that that positive reputation now because people don't 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.680 believe he's really that guy that they respect. In principle, 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:40.280 that raises an interesting question about what we value in reputation. 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.919 Like most people want to be I want to have 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.840 a good reputation want people to like them. But would 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.280 it be would you be happy to have a good 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:52.760 reputation if people didn't recognize you as yourself, if they 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.560 didn't connect you in your current body to the bearer 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.479 of that reputation. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty pretty interesting. I mean, 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:04.040 it's it makes you think about like legendary people and indeed, 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.080 what if you had time travel scenarios where they got 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:07.960 to travel into the future and they're like, oh, yeah, 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.080 I'm famous. But also that that image of me has 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.199 grown so and is and is so revered that you know, 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.240 me just standing here, they're not even gonna identify me 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.919 with that person. Well, so, anyway, I think this story 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.480 would not be as old as the time dilation story 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:29.080 in the Mahabarita, But otherwise I think this may be 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.440 the oldest time travel story that that I've been able 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.000 to come across, and it's definitely the oldest sleeping into 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:46.000 the future story that I've found. Now, this wouldn't know, 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.520 this wouldn't be older, but I did. I did run 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:54.760 across some some interesting additional time weirdness stories here. Um uh. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.760 In between the publication of Part one in this series 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.560 and the recording of part two. UH listener by the 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:02.800 name of Ahmed wrote in, Ahmed has written in before 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.639 with some interesting content, but this time Ahmed wrote into 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:11.560 share a couple of time travel tales related to Islamic tradition. 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.280 One of them and he ends up mentioning the Seven Sleepers. Again. 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:17.760 We had not actually recorded this episode yet, so he 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.800 did not know that seven seven Sleepers were coming. But 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:22.520 he also shared the following us. So I'm going to 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.720 read from Ahmed's email quote. According to Muslim tradition, Mohammed 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.359 ascends to Heaven from Mecca on the back of a 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.480 winged mount with the angel Gabriel as his guide. There, 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.560 he individually meets with the prophets who came before him, 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.520 ending with Moses and Abraham. Finally, he has an audience 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.320 with God, who tells him to instruct Muslims to pray 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:48.560 fifty times per day. After some back and forth at 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.960 the urging of Moses, who says that fifty is far 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.200 too onerous, Muhammed leaves with the current five day prayers 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.800 for Muslims. Notably, many Muslims sources say that when Mohammed 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.560 turns from this journey, his door is still swinging back 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:07.560 and forth, suggesting either a complete stoppage of time or 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.320 at least a considerable dilation. That is very interesting. And 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.000 the plays once again on the idea that that time 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.320 passes differently in the heavens or in the realm of 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:20.800 God or the gods than it does here on earth, 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.000 that maybe you know that you know, I guess it's 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:25.919 similar to the idea that a day is as a 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:29.560 thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. Yeah. 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:31.879 So there's something about the story that was like, Okay, 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.479 this this sounds familiar. I think I've I've read this before, 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:37.400 or I've I've heard something like this before. So I 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.400 looked into it a little bit and then I realized, oh, yes, 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:45.240 there is a there's a wonderful creature involved in some 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:49.160 of these tellings. Um and and again um um. Ahm 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.560 Ed mentioned that there's a winged mount uh that that 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.560 the prophet rides on, and this creature is sometimes described 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:01.679 as Alba rock um, which means the shining or resplendent 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:06.840 one um. Those were those translations were were provided by 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:11.000 Jorge Luis Borges and his book Imaginary Beings and Carol 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.080 Rose the Folklore's also provides the translation the lightning. So 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:19.480 it's kind of a winged centaur in many artist depictions. 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.040 You can look up images of of this. It's you know, 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.359 sometimes spelled bu r a q or b o r 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:29.480 a k in English, and rose ads that it is. 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:33.040 It's generally described as being pure white. Uh. Sometimes it's 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:35.679 covered with jewels and precious stones that might be of 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:39.560 varying colors. Its breath is perfume, and it can understand 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:43.320 human speech, but sources on are split on whether the 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:45.840 creature can actually talk itself or if it can just 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.200 understand um. But I wanted to read just a bit 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:53.080 from boges book here. Uh. He shares a bit about 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:58.919 about al Baraq. Quote. One Islamic Haadith tells us that 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:02.120 is Baraque flew upward from the earth. It kicked over 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:05.439 a jar filled with water. The prophet was taken up 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:07.639 to the seventh Heaven, where he spoke with each of 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:11.480 the patriarchs and angels that reside there, crossed the oneness, 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:13.760 and felt a chill that froze his heart when the 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.920 hand of God patted him on the shoulder the time 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:19.560 of men is not the time of God. When he 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:22.520 returned to earth, the prophet caught the jar before a 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:26.080 single drop of water had spilled out of it. Wow. 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.400 That Yeah, that's time dilation again. That's amazing. Yeah. Yea, 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:31.600 the door is still swinging back and forth. The jar 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:34.000 of water that was dropped has not yet hit the ground. 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:37.240 Uh so so yeah, I love this account and I 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:41.520 love that we have ah, this wonderful uh fantastic beast here. Um. 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:43.560 By the way, if you pick up a copy of 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:47.239 the Book of Imaginary Beings, the version that's imprint right 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.520 now with illustrations by Peter Siss, al Baraq is on 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:52.960 the cover, or a depiction of Albaroq is on the cover. 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:55.000 But but also look up some of the various art 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:58.520 art artistic ways that this creature has been brought to 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:02.840 life in different is Lament cultures. Because it's pretty fabulous. Yeah, 0:25:02.840 --> 0:25:05.359 this illustration is great because it is it's almost like 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:10.240 a mix between a pegasus and a megalithic sculpture. Yeah. Now, 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:14.400 another possible example of time travel and old texts UM 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:18.080 can be found in the sixteenth century Ming Dynasty text 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:22.800 from China Journey into the West UM. And I actually 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:26.159 had not thought to look here until you mentioned it. 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:29.040 To Joe, and so I ended up uh checking it 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:31.639 out see what exactly the Monkey King was up to. 0:25:32.200 --> 0:25:35.080 Uh that relates to time travel? Oh okay, So I 0:25:35.119 --> 0:25:37.719 think I came across a mention of time travel in 0:25:37.800 --> 0:25:40.280 the supplement to the Journey to the West. But there, 0:25:40.400 --> 0:25:44.320 but there's time travel in the original as well. Um. Yes, 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:47.320 both to a certain extent. So, um, so if if 0:25:47.359 --> 0:25:51.600 you're wondering, yeah, Journey into into the West Chinese classic. Uh. 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:55.160 This is a classic work and has been adapted many 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:58.200 times in many different forms. Uh. And and it generally 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:01.560 concerns the exploits of the Monkey King or Sun will Kong, 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:05.800 the Great Sage equal to Heaven. Um, so there's uh 0:26:06.320 --> 0:26:08.880 uh and that's so that's the main work. But yes, 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:12.159 there's also this supplemental work supplement to the Journey to 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:16.320 the West and uh. In both cases, the episodes concerned 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:20.240 the time warping experience of dream so in the In 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.679 the original, there's basically just a section where um years 0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:27.280 of training for monkey are compressed by a time trance. 0:26:28.119 --> 0:26:31.240 But yeah, when you get into the supplement, that's where 0:26:31.280 --> 0:26:34.600 things get really interesting. This second work is also known 0:26:34.640 --> 0:26:38.040 as the Tower of Myriad Mirrors and its which I 0:26:38.040 --> 0:26:41.480 think Borges would would would surely have loved that title. 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:45.479 Uh And it takes this fantastic travelog style of the 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:49.560 original and gives us even more time weirdness. I was 0:26:49.600 --> 0:26:51.960 reading about this in an article by Dr II ching 0:26:52.080 --> 0:26:56.800 Wang of the University of Liverpool titled Tower of Myriad Mirrors, 0:26:57.119 --> 0:26:59.000 and so I want to read just a quote from 0:26:59.040 --> 0:27:03.200 this quote in the narrative. Upon leaving the Flaming Mountain, 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:07.600 the monkey uh i e. Monkey King or Sugu and 0:27:07.720 --> 0:27:11.480 Kong is trapped in a hallucinatory world of mirrors evoked 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:16.760 by ching Fish, a monster epitomizing desire and a negative 0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:21.320 force proportionate to the monkeys innate morality, though a tower 0:27:21.359 --> 0:27:25.479 of myriad of mirrors is in disparate identities. The monkey 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:28.640 embarks on an array of adventures to various time points, 0:27:28.960 --> 0:27:32.920 ranging from the immemorial Chin to Twe through two oh 0:27:32.960 --> 0:27:38.000 six BC dynasty to the Song through twelve seventy nine 0:27:38.080 --> 0:27:41.679 dynasty that is preceded by the story setting i e. 0:27:42.080 --> 0:27:46.400 The Tang dynasty six eighteen through n d. Upon returning 0:27:46.400 --> 0:27:49.240 to his own era, the monkey discovers that his master, 0:27:49.400 --> 0:27:53.560 the priest, defies the abstinence from sex and becomes a general, 0:27:53.840 --> 0:27:57.359 and the monkey is entangled in a gargantuan war, during 0:27:57.400 --> 0:28:00.359 which he encounters his own offspring. In the end, the 0:28:00.400 --> 0:28:03.680 monkey is awakened by the original time traveler and kills 0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:07.200 the ching fish as the embodiment of desire that entraps 0:28:07.240 --> 0:28:11.960 his altruism, thereby eliminating the negative traits from his psyche 0:28:12.119 --> 0:28:16.480 or self. Okay, so if this counts as a type 0:28:16.480 --> 0:28:19.439 of time travel, you might say that it is time 0:28:19.440 --> 0:28:23.159 travel as a weapon, like a weapon of distraction against 0:28:23.240 --> 0:28:26.480 the hero of the of the story. Yeah, yeah, And 0:28:26.680 --> 0:28:28.879 I guess in this, I mean, in this it reminds 0:28:28.920 --> 0:28:31.840 me a lot of of the time travel that we 0:28:31.920 --> 0:28:35.000 see in a Christmas Carol, right, because it's all within 0:28:35.040 --> 0:28:39.400 a dream essentially, it's all within the nighttime headspace of 0:28:39.440 --> 0:28:42.080 a character. Uh. Though in the case of the Christmas 0:28:42.160 --> 0:28:45.719 Carol it is um it is being pulled off by 0:28:45.760 --> 0:28:48.800 a ghost in order to try and save that individual 0:28:49.240 --> 0:28:52.280 from damnation and and uh. And in this case it 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:56.280 is being orchestrated by a demon in an attempt to 0:28:55.720 --> 0:28:59.880 u to distract and corrupt our our hero. But so, 0:29:00.080 --> 0:29:04.600 because this novel, the supplement to the Journey to the 0:29:04.600 --> 0:29:07.560 West is written in the future about a previous era. 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:12.200 It can have its protagonist at least in this hallucinatory 0:29:12.280 --> 0:29:15.480 distraction thing going through the air, looking through these mirrors, 0:29:15.520 --> 0:29:18.760 are going through these mirrors and journeying two times into 0:29:18.800 --> 0:29:22.280 the past and future from where he began. Yeah, it 0:29:22.280 --> 0:29:25.080 sounds pretty pretty interesting. Um again, I have I haven't 0:29:25.120 --> 0:29:27.320 I haven't read I have not read this work, but 0:29:27.400 --> 0:29:31.200 I was running across some other papers that we're talking about. UM. 0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:34.120 Time travel potentially being used in some of the Monkey 0:29:34.200 --> 0:29:36.520 King films that have come out, and there have been many. Again, 0:29:36.640 --> 0:29:40.360 there have been many Monkey King films and TV shows, uh, 0:29:40.360 --> 0:29:42.719 and the adaptations of Journey into the West. So if 0:29:42.760 --> 0:29:44.600 anyone out there is has seen a bunch of them, 0:29:44.600 --> 0:29:47.440 I think I've seen one or two. I don't remember 0:29:47.480 --> 0:29:50.800 there being any time travel narratives, but it stands to 0:29:50.840 --> 0:29:53.560 reason that time travel pops up in some of those adaptations. 0:29:53.560 --> 0:29:56.360 So if you've seen one, that's pretty cool, let us know. 0:29:56.480 --> 0:29:58.920 I'd love to know about it. Well, I'd at least 0:29:58.920 --> 0:30:01.920 say that this is also notable for being um even 0:30:01.960 --> 0:30:04.480 though you could say that there's some big caveats on 0:30:04.520 --> 0:30:07.200 it because it's like a hallucinatory kind of thing. But 0:30:07.400 --> 0:30:09.680 to the extent that you would consider this time travel. 0:30:09.720 --> 0:30:11.760 It is one of the earliest examples I can think 0:30:11.760 --> 0:30:14.920 of we've looked at that involves traveling backward, because all 0:30:14.960 --> 0:30:17.360 of the others we've looked at so far, the time 0:30:17.400 --> 0:30:20.160 dilation or the sleeping into the future, tend to just 0:30:20.280 --> 0:30:24.680 involve traveling forward relative to the normal uh rate at 0:30:24.680 --> 0:30:27.680 which time would pass or at which you would age. Yeah, 0:30:27.880 --> 0:30:31.320 and it's um, it's interesting to sort of try and 0:30:31.320 --> 0:30:34.040 and and figure out like why that is the case, 0:30:34.080 --> 0:30:35.920 and I the best I can come up with is 0:30:36.120 --> 0:30:39.200 it is probably what the author is um is touching 0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:43.680 on here, the dynastic progression. Uh, the idea that like 0:30:43.840 --> 0:30:48.520 that that history is important enough that you would want 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:54.360 to comment on it through through time travel. Um. Um. 0:30:54.480 --> 0:30:56.520 So yeah, I don't know that. I'm sure there's more 0:30:56.560 --> 0:30:59.560 to the story there, but but at any rate, Uh, 0:30:59.640 --> 0:31:01.840 here's the here's the Monkey King popping up as a 0:31:01.840 --> 0:31:07.640 as one of our our many older time travelers. Maybe 0:31:07.680 --> 0:31:10.760 not time traveler zero, but if it's still notable. You know, 0:31:10.800 --> 0:31:14.920 while we're on the subject of um Chinese conceptualization of time, 0:31:15.560 --> 0:31:18.160 this reminds me of an interesting email that we got, 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:20.400 so maybe we can we'll do a couple of listener 0:31:20.480 --> 0:31:22.760 mails within this episode itself, which is actually, I think 0:31:22.840 --> 0:31:26.000 very cool that the time gap in between part one 0:31:26.000 --> 0:31:29.240 and two has allowed us to incorporate some listener feedback 0:31:29.280 --> 0:31:32.360 into part two itself here. But um, so, so this 0:31:32.400 --> 0:31:35.440 is a message we got from Born. So this is 0:31:35.480 --> 0:31:38.800 responding to the part of part one of this series 0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:42.960 where we talked about visualizing time as a type of space, 0:31:43.040 --> 0:31:46.360 which appears to be extremely common, maybe even universal, or 0:31:46.400 --> 0:31:50.040 if not, it's nearly universal across languages on Earth. Uh. 0:31:50.200 --> 0:31:52.680 That that we talk about time as if it were 0:31:52.720 --> 0:31:55.000 a type of space, or a dimension of space, or 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:58.880 a sort of range within space, and uh. And then Rob, 0:31:58.960 --> 0:32:02.400 you and I ended up talking about how how common 0:32:02.440 --> 0:32:05.600 it is to discuss the future as if it is 0:32:05.640 --> 0:32:08.160 physically in the space in front of us, in the 0:32:08.200 --> 0:32:11.920 past as if it's physically in the space behind us. Uh. 0:32:12.000 --> 0:32:15.600 This also appears to be pretty common cross culturally, but 0:32:15.720 --> 0:32:19.000 apparently this is not universal. And this is really interesting. 0:32:19.000 --> 0:32:22.920 So Bjorn was passing along some comment from his girlfriend 0:32:22.960 --> 0:32:27.120 who is from Hong Kong, and she apparently says quote 0:32:27.120 --> 0:32:29.040 When you think of the future, you see it as 0:32:29.080 --> 0:32:31.560 something in front of you, something you are moving towards. 0:32:31.920 --> 0:32:33.800 The past, on the other hand, is something you have 0:32:33.880 --> 0:32:38.760 left behind in Cantonese. In the Cantonese language, the concepts 0:32:38.800 --> 0:32:41.959 are reversed. The past is in front of you because 0:32:42.000 --> 0:32:45.400 these are things which happened and you can now see clearly. 0:32:45.840 --> 0:32:48.360 The future, on the other hand, is behind your back. 0:32:48.840 --> 0:32:51.800 You can sense it but not perceive it with any clarity. 0:32:53.560 --> 0:32:55.720 So I thought that was really interesting. I don't know 0:32:55.920 --> 0:32:58.560 if I don't know how common or if that's near 0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:01.840 universal for Cantonese speakers, but I would be interested to 0:33:01.880 --> 0:33:05.320 hear more about that. Uh. And that that makes its 0:33:05.320 --> 0:33:07.600 own logical sense in a way, so you would still 0:33:07.640 --> 0:33:11.479 be conceptualizing time as a type of space, but just 0:33:11.520 --> 0:33:15.080 flipping the polls with respect to your body. But but certainly, 0:33:15.120 --> 0:33:17.520 I mean, we were talking about metaphors in the first episode. 0:33:17.560 --> 0:33:20.640 You know, it's like the way we talk about time, uh, 0:33:20.680 --> 0:33:23.120 and in the way we think about time, like these 0:33:23.360 --> 0:33:25.840 these are the things that end up affecting the way 0:33:25.840 --> 0:33:28.680 we construct our time travel narratives. Well, it makes me 0:33:28.720 --> 0:33:30.960 wonder like if this is it, if this is actually 0:33:31.000 --> 0:33:33.360 more common or there are. There are at least some 0:33:33.640 --> 0:33:37.440 languages in which it's more common to uh to build 0:33:37.480 --> 0:33:40.800 metaphors where the space behind you is the future, in 0:33:40.840 --> 0:33:42.560 the space in front of you is the past. With 0:33:42.640 --> 0:33:46.840 that effect, how people who speak those languages design uh 0:33:47.040 --> 0:33:49.720 time machines and science fictions? Are they less likely to 0:33:49.760 --> 0:33:53.600 be sort of forward facing vehicles like you you often 0:33:53.600 --> 0:33:56.760 see in you know, the DeLorean and stuff like that. Yeah, 0:33:56.800 --> 0:34:00.360 that's interesting now, you know, thinking back to us, specially 0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:02.240 talking I was talking about this, but also talking about 0:34:02.360 --> 0:34:05.280 not dreaming and sleeping. Um. For the most part, we're 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:08.840 talking about baseline human experience here kind of extrapolated into 0:34:09.400 --> 0:34:13.400 into the fantastic um. But obviously, if you've add various 0:34:13.400 --> 0:34:16.680 other conditions and substances into the mix, uh, time can 0:34:16.680 --> 0:34:20.640 seem even weirder. I know there's at least one time 0:34:20.680 --> 0:34:24.799 travel story that Nayan mentions, uh, some early work of 0:34:24.840 --> 0:34:27.360 literature in which somebody's hit on the hill. Oh, no, 0:34:27.520 --> 0:34:28.839 I know what it is. It was, of course, Mark 0:34:28.880 --> 0:34:32.799 Twain's Confederate Yankee and King Arthur's Court. I believe the 0:34:32.840 --> 0:34:37.920 time travel what did I say, Confederate Yankee Confederate Yankee? Well, yes, um, 0:34:38.040 --> 0:34:41.520 Connecticut Yankee. Rather uh in In uh In in King 0:34:41.600 --> 0:34:43.840 or this court uh that book which I think I 0:34:43.880 --> 0:34:46.080 read a long time ago. I've forgotten all of it, 0:34:46.200 --> 0:34:49.680 but but I believe time travel is achieved by that 0:34:49.800 --> 0:34:52.240 character being hit on the back of the head with something. 0:34:52.400 --> 0:34:55.239 I think he is the foreman in a factory and 0:34:55.320 --> 0:34:57.640 one of his workers wax him on the head with 0:34:57.680 --> 0:35:02.000 a wrench. I think that's right, m and then travels 0:35:02.040 --> 0:35:06.000 back in time. So but it is a reminder that, yes, 0:35:06.040 --> 0:35:11.319 when you start talking about altered um, altered experiences of 0:35:11.360 --> 0:35:14.239 the brain, that adds a different dimension to your contemplations 0:35:14.239 --> 0:35:16.799 of time travel. Um. And you know this is the 0:35:16.880 --> 0:35:19.440 case too when you start throwing in various substances. Uh. 0:35:19.920 --> 0:35:22.759 You know, we did a whole series on psychedelics a 0:35:22.760 --> 0:35:25.240 couple of years back, and one of the commonly sided 0:35:25.239 --> 0:35:29.320 effects there is the altered perception of time. And you 0:35:29.360 --> 0:35:31.160 know we see this in literature as well as far 0:35:31.160 --> 0:35:35.719 back as like Thomas de Quincy's Confessions of an English opiameter. 0:35:36.239 --> 0:35:39.399 Oh yeah, Now, Nan doesn't spend a lot of time 0:35:39.440 --> 0:35:41.759 with this. He points out the quote smoking marijuana or 0:35:41.760 --> 0:35:45.840 taking amphetamines and or LSD to achieve a nonlinear hallucinogenic 0:35:45.880 --> 0:35:49.200 experience of time travel. Uh. He says that sometimes used 0:35:49.200 --> 0:35:51.880 by writers as a way of exploring the concept of 0:35:51.880 --> 0:35:54.560 time travel, but it's not something that he set out 0:35:54.600 --> 0:35:58.480 to explore extensively in the book. So I was thinking, well, 0:35:58.520 --> 0:36:02.800 who who might have talked talked about psychedelics and time travel? 0:36:03.320 --> 0:36:05.080 I was like, Oh, I wonder what Terence McKenna had 0:36:05.080 --> 0:36:07.200 to say about this. So I started looking around for 0:36:07.320 --> 0:36:10.640 Terence McKenna talking about time travel. And the weird thing 0:36:10.760 --> 0:36:13.600 was is I ran across an interview with McKenna from 0:36:14.520 --> 0:36:17.920 nine in which he mentions that he is currently reading 0:36:18.440 --> 0:36:21.879 Nayan's book on time travel. Oh that's weird, I thought. 0:36:21.920 --> 0:36:24.040 For some reason, I thought that that Naan book came 0:36:24.040 --> 0:36:26.239 out in like two thousand one. Well, there have been 0:36:26.239 --> 0:36:30.680 different editions of it. Oh okay, yeah, let me see okay, 0:36:30.760 --> 0:36:34.920 first published ninety three, Okay, okay, okay, okay, So it 0:36:35.000 --> 0:36:40.160 is possible. Good, maybe the interview is from eighty nine, right, right, yes, 0:36:40.200 --> 0:36:42.880 and the book would have first come out. Sorry for 0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:47.120 all the unnecessary time traveling, uh listeners, but any rate, 0:36:47.480 --> 0:36:50.640 Uh they the short too late for the short version 0:36:50.640 --> 0:36:53.080 on this. But basically I found it amusing that that 0:36:53.400 --> 0:36:56.080 McKenna was talking about the very book that I had 0:36:56.080 --> 0:37:00.600 been reading for this episode. Um and, I don't know, 0:37:00.840 --> 0:37:03.560 thinking it didn't have a lot ex extra to add, 0:37:03.600 --> 0:37:05.360 but he did talk a little bit about time travel 0:37:05.440 --> 0:37:07.480 and some of his talks mentioning that he liked the 0:37:07.520 --> 0:37:09.759 idea that you can only travel back as far as 0:37:09.760 --> 0:37:13.399 the time machine exists, So you can only go back 0:37:13.480 --> 0:37:16.280 as far as like day one of the time machine 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:19.560 existing as a time machine. Um and and you know 0:37:19.719 --> 0:37:21.880 then to explore it as kind of a fantasy scenario, 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:24.279 but he also lays out a scenario in which time 0:37:24.320 --> 0:37:28.520 travel is more hyper spatial rather than linear. And uh 0:37:28.560 --> 0:37:30.320 and N asked, like, what have you pushed the button 0:37:30.400 --> 0:37:33.200 on your time machine and it's simply simply made all 0:37:33.320 --> 0:37:36.520 future events seem to occur at once. Uh So the 0:37:36.560 --> 0:37:39.239 time machine would be more like a doorway to eternity 0:37:39.640 --> 0:37:42.719 rather than a gateway into the future. Oh so, rather 0:37:42.800 --> 0:37:46.400 than actually transporting you, it just like breaks the person 0:37:46.520 --> 0:37:50.520 inside perception of time. Yeah, in a way. You know 0:37:50.600 --> 0:37:54.920 this this reminds me of the movie, uh Jack Frost 0:37:55.000 --> 0:37:57.560 that we just recently talked about for Weird howth Cinema 0:37:58.120 --> 0:38:01.200 um in in that there's you know that wonderful scene 0:38:01.200 --> 0:38:05.759 where she uh, where Nastinka begs ruby ruby finger don 0:38:06.320 --> 0:38:09.440 to reverse itself, like gets the sun to to go 0:38:09.560 --> 0:38:12.160 back down over the horizon so that she has a 0:38:12.160 --> 0:38:16.000 little more time to finish her chore by dawn. And 0:38:16.120 --> 0:38:17.560 uh and there's a lot there's a lot of fun 0:38:17.560 --> 0:38:19.440 to be made on mysteray science theater riffing on that 0:38:19.480 --> 0:38:20.839 about oh, well, you know this is going to bring 0:38:20.880 --> 0:38:24.439 about tidal waves and global destruction to have the sun 0:38:24.520 --> 0:38:28.000 suddenly stop uh and reverse itself or the planet you know, 0:38:28.040 --> 0:38:31.000 reverse itself whichever, uh, you know, just to totally screw 0:38:31.080 --> 0:38:34.279 up the celestial mechanics of everything. Um in a way 0:38:34.320 --> 0:38:35.960 you could you could say, well, maybe it would be 0:38:36.000 --> 0:38:38.480 the same thing with the time machine. Say you did 0:38:38.560 --> 0:38:42.200 somehow create a machine that allowed you to travel in time, 0:38:42.560 --> 0:38:46.480 that allows you to uh to move around like this. Well, 0:38:46.520 --> 0:38:48.719 what if it just wrecked everything? What if it just 0:38:49.480 --> 0:38:52.200 or if it didn't wreck everything, you just like permanently 0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:55.719 screwed up your human perception of time. Well, this is 0:38:55.760 --> 0:38:58.160 the idea that uh, that we talked about with Daniel 0:38:58.160 --> 0:39:00.840 Whiteson where he was saying, you know, if you were 0:39:00.880 --> 0:39:04.080 really trying to think about a machine that would allow 0:39:04.120 --> 0:39:06.040 you to travel into the past and try to make 0:39:06.080 --> 0:39:09.080 it work. He says, it would make more sense the 0:39:09.560 --> 0:39:13.440 machine reverses the flow of time for the entire universe 0:39:13.480 --> 0:39:16.560 around you than that it does anything for you. So 0:39:16.719 --> 0:39:19.680 time continues to pass normally for you, but somehow it 0:39:19.680 --> 0:39:22.960 it makes time go backwards for the for the entire 0:39:23.000 --> 0:39:28.319 rest of the world. Now. In the book, Nan goes 0:39:28.360 --> 0:39:31.280 into greater detail with lots of examples that are definitely 0:39:31.280 --> 0:39:33.879 worth looking up for for fans of old school time 0:39:33.880 --> 0:39:36.799 traveler yarns. But I think it's safe to say that 0:39:36.840 --> 0:39:38.839 you know they're there are older ideas and perhaps even 0:39:39.440 --> 0:39:43.720 ancient ideas, you know, understanding that time passes in weird ways, 0:39:44.040 --> 0:39:47.080 and if there's something particularly human about reflecting on the past, 0:39:47.600 --> 0:39:50.799 worrying about the future, and engaging in patterns of thought 0:39:50.840 --> 0:39:53.760 and systems of behavior that can connect us to different 0:39:53.800 --> 0:39:56.759 times and even deliver us to different times, certainly in 0:39:56.800 --> 0:40:00.919 the and when we when we sleep into the future now, 0:40:01.040 --> 0:40:05.000 um Naan writes a little bit about time machines, of course, 0:40:05.200 --> 0:40:07.879 and uh says the machines entered the scenario because they 0:40:07.920 --> 0:40:11.719 represent reason and of course science, and they indicate the 0:40:11.800 --> 0:40:13.799 belief that there may be some sort of way to 0:40:13.920 --> 0:40:17.520 make possible what it is to varying degrees thought possible, 0:40:17.560 --> 0:40:21.359 at least under certain circumstances. Um, particularly if you're talking 0:40:21.360 --> 0:40:24.880 about time travel into the future. Yeah, this is interesting, 0:40:24.880 --> 0:40:27.960 and this brings me back to um some thoughts that 0:40:28.320 --> 0:40:30.560 that I was reading and listen to an a lecture 0:40:30.680 --> 0:40:33.359 by a scholar that I mentioned in the previous part 0:40:33.800 --> 0:40:39.040 who is a professor of science fiction studies at Georgia 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:42.680 Tech named Lisa Yazik, And you know, she draws some 0:40:42.719 --> 0:40:48.920 connections between specific developments in technology and not just technology, 0:40:48.960 --> 0:40:54.320 technology and transportation infrastructure in the late nineteenth century that 0:40:54.480 --> 0:40:57.360 sort of push forward the idea that you could create 0:40:57.800 --> 0:41:00.960 a time machine. Now, of course we know that H. G. 0:41:01.080 --> 0:41:05.319 Wells The Time Machine published in eight This was a 0:41:05.440 --> 0:41:09.120 hugely influential work of science fiction that I think would 0:41:09.160 --> 0:41:11.840 inspire a lot of the time travel stories that came afterward. 0:41:11.880 --> 0:41:14.359 But it was by no means the first story about 0:41:14.440 --> 0:41:17.919 time travel. But one thing you can say is that 0:41:18.360 --> 0:41:23.120 almost all of the time travel stories before Wells, we're 0:41:23.160 --> 0:41:26.600 not really science fiction, and that the time travel mechanic 0:41:26.719 --> 0:41:32.040 was almost always a sort of inexplicable, uh, fantasy thing, 0:41:32.040 --> 0:41:34.320 and it was like the action of a god or 0:41:34.360 --> 0:41:38.400 an angel or some kind of supernatural imposition, or it's 0:41:38.440 --> 0:41:41.000 some type of time dilation by going to different planes 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:44.040 of existence or something. But but with Wells you get 0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:49.319 a time machine, a vehicle that is created by science. 0:41:50.160 --> 0:41:53.160 Now I think it's not even the very first example 0:41:53.160 --> 0:41:54.840 of that that I want to mention another example I 0:41:54.880 --> 0:41:57.320 came across that that I think is very funny and 0:41:57.320 --> 0:41:59.720 it will be fun to read a little bit from. 0:41:59.800 --> 0:42:02.359 But I was just watching a lecture by Yazik where 0:42:02.400 --> 0:42:04.719 she she mentions a couple of things. One is that 0:42:04.880 --> 0:42:08.280 before you get to the time machine, um, a number 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:11.279 of the time travel stories from the nineteenth century that 0:42:11.440 --> 0:42:15.040 involved traveling through time based on some kind of device 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:20.040 used not vehicles but clocks. And a classic example here 0:42:20.160 --> 0:42:22.680 is a story called the Clock that Went Backward by 0:42:22.800 --> 0:42:26.239 Edward Page Mitchell that was published in eighteen eighty one. 0:42:26.560 --> 0:42:29.120 And this is about this is also kind of a 0:42:29.120 --> 0:42:31.319 fantasy story. I mean, it's not like a clock that 0:42:31.440 --> 0:42:34.080 was designed to do this by and a scientist, inventor 0:42:34.200 --> 0:42:36.520 or something who wanted to travel through time. It's just 0:42:36.560 --> 0:42:38.799 like there's a weird clock and when you wind it up, 0:42:38.880 --> 0:42:43.279 people nearby can get sent back in time. But the 0:42:43.320 --> 0:42:46.000 thing that I thought was interesting was that Yazick mentioned, 0:42:46.040 --> 0:42:50.200 you know, these stories about technological time travel arising in 0:42:50.239 --> 0:42:55.960 an age of standardization of time measures, uh for for 0:42:56.080 --> 0:43:00.440 industry and politics. So in this era of industrial zation, 0:43:00.640 --> 0:43:04.920 coordination of rapid transport through train stations and shipping ports 0:43:04.960 --> 0:43:10.360 in in the late nineteenth century, Um, something happens in 0:43:10.440 --> 0:43:14.680 people's consciousness that makes them think about time differently, and 0:43:14.760 --> 0:43:18.120 this maybe helps give rise to the proliferation of time 0:43:18.120 --> 0:43:27.520 travel stories that would follow than now. I was also 0:43:27.600 --> 0:43:32.080 reading a short introduction that that Laci Azik wrote to 0:43:33.040 --> 0:43:36.720 a recent new edition of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. 0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:40.640 It was the dred and twenty fifth anniversary edition, So yeah, 0:43:40.880 --> 0:43:42.320 I guess that would have been last year, right, and 0:43:42.400 --> 0:43:46.520 published in eight came out in Karence McKenna read it 0:43:46.640 --> 0:43:50.920 in Yeah exactly, Okay, you come more of an inside 0:43:50.960 --> 0:43:56.080 joke for us, okay, uh But so she writes about 0:43:56.120 --> 0:43:58.560 how so the Time Machine the novel was published in 0:43:58.600 --> 0:44:01.600 eight U and that was sort of the work that 0:44:01.760 --> 0:44:04.680 launched H. G. Wells literary career. He was born in 0:44:04.760 --> 0:44:07.440 eighteen sixty six, so I guess he was only like 0:44:07.480 --> 0:44:10.440 twenty nine at the time that it came out. Though 0:44:10.719 --> 0:44:13.319 The Time Machine the novel was actually based on a 0:44:13.360 --> 0:44:17.000 short story that Wells had written seven years before, called 0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:21.480 and I Love this the chronic Argonauts. Have you read 0:44:21.480 --> 0:44:24.000 this one? Rob? I have not. I have not either, 0:44:24.040 --> 0:44:26.400 So it's it's sort of, I think, a shorter, earlier 0:44:26.520 --> 0:44:29.880 version of the Time Machine where the hero is not 0:44:29.960 --> 0:44:32.319 so much a hero. He's more of a mad scientist 0:44:32.400 --> 0:44:35.840 who gets into trouble by creating a time machine and 0:44:36.000 --> 0:44:38.760 unleash his havoc that goes on for thousands of years. 0:44:39.239 --> 0:44:42.960 But interesting fact I learned from from Yazig's intro here. 0:44:43.280 --> 0:44:47.640 Apparently Wells published this story in his college lipmag. So 0:44:47.800 --> 0:44:50.520 let this be an inspiration to your college lipmag editors 0:44:50.520 --> 0:44:53.520 out there. Yeah. Yeah, it could be the place where you, um, 0:44:53.680 --> 0:44:58.680 you published the garbage version of your future it. Um. 0:44:58.719 --> 0:45:01.600 But yeah. So in subs went years, Wells revised and 0:45:01.640 --> 0:45:04.720 expanded the short story until it developed into the novel 0:45:04.760 --> 0:45:08.240 that we know today. Um and so. Wells apparently wrote 0:45:08.239 --> 0:45:10.520 in later years that he believed there was a rule 0:45:10.640 --> 0:45:12.880 for writing good science fiction. I'm not sure if I 0:45:12.920 --> 0:45:15.880 agree with this, but but it's interesting. So he says, 0:45:16.320 --> 0:45:18.640 to have good sci fi, you need to give the 0:45:18.680 --> 0:45:23.320 story only one fantastical element and then make everything else 0:45:23.400 --> 0:45:27.719 as grounded, realistic and human as you possibly can. So 0:45:27.840 --> 0:45:30.560 how would that apply to the time Machine? Well An 0:45:30.560 --> 0:45:33.880 example is that in the original short story The Chronic Argonauts, 0:45:34.320 --> 0:45:37.640 Wells had the protagonists living in a gothic mansion in 0:45:37.680 --> 0:45:40.440 the countryside, and so I think the implication here is 0:45:40.480 --> 0:45:44.480 that it would invite readers to think of other tropes 0:45:44.520 --> 0:45:48.719 of Gothic literature, the mysterious, the uncanny. I think the 0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:51.640 association I would have would be with like Charlotte Bronte 0:45:51.760 --> 0:45:54.920 and Jane Eyre. But in the Time Machine and the 0:45:54.960 --> 0:45:58.720 novel version, he he rewrote it to uh to locate 0:45:58.760 --> 0:46:03.080 the protagonist in bourgeois neighborhood of London, basically as mundane 0:46:03.120 --> 0:46:05.759 and uninteresting as setting as he could think of. But 0:46:05.960 --> 0:46:09.320 you go into this mundane uh, you know, bourgeois household, 0:46:09.440 --> 0:46:13.360 and here's a time machine. It's interesting how you don't 0:46:13.400 --> 0:46:15.400 think about the setting of the time machine being mundane 0:46:15.440 --> 0:46:18.600 today because it is. It is now an historical work. 0:46:19.360 --> 0:46:22.799 So the idea that it's it's set uh in um 0:46:22.840 --> 0:46:25.799 in this neighborhood in London, like that's part of it's 0:46:25.800 --> 0:46:28.920 such as charm, it's appeal. Like essentially you have you 0:46:29.239 --> 0:46:31.880 have two different elements that are that are foreign to 0:46:32.040 --> 0:46:34.640 the to the reader, or more than two. But the 0:46:34.640 --> 0:46:37.640 time Machine becomes a novelist full of a strange and 0:46:37.640 --> 0:46:40.759 wonderful places that are not our own reality. Right. I 0:46:40.760 --> 0:46:43.799 guess the idea today would be like, uh, what if 0:46:43.840 --> 0:46:46.400 you went into a house like a McMansion in the 0:46:46.400 --> 0:46:49.319 suburbs and in the subdivision here and here it is, 0:46:49.360 --> 0:46:52.799 here's a time machine. Now we've already mentioned that the 0:46:52.880 --> 0:46:55.279 time Machine is by no means the first story to 0:46:55.440 --> 0:46:59.279 depict time travel. Obviously, if you include time dilation and 0:46:59.320 --> 0:47:02.080 sleeping into the future, time travel stories can be found 0:47:02.080 --> 0:47:05.279 here and there, well into the ancient past, and even 0:47:05.400 --> 0:47:09.080 some stories of more direct time travels, such as being 0:47:09.120 --> 0:47:12.279 delivered documents from the future. I think that's something that 0:47:12.360 --> 0:47:16.120 happens in a story called Memoirs of the twentieth Century, 0:47:16.120 --> 0:47:19.040 written by Samuel Madden and published in the eighteenth century. 0:47:19.040 --> 0:47:22.080 I think this was like seventeen thirty three and basically 0:47:22.160 --> 0:47:24.920 the story is an angel appears from the future and 0:47:24.960 --> 0:47:28.799 deliver some letters from future people to people living at 0:47:28.800 --> 0:47:31.839 the time. Yeah, from the years nineteen seven and nine. 0:47:33.960 --> 0:47:36.320 And then of course you get these nineteenth century examples 0:47:36.320 --> 0:47:38.480 we've been talking about, like the clock that went backwards 0:47:38.480 --> 0:47:40.920 and stuff that there are still and UH and Christmas 0:47:40.960 --> 0:47:43.719 Carol and connect a Yankee and King Arthur's Court that 0:47:43.800 --> 0:47:48.160 are still basically fantasies. But yas it makes the distinction 0:47:48.239 --> 0:47:51.280 that the Wells is really the first to popularize time 0:47:51.320 --> 0:47:55.800 travel as a convention of of realistically grounded science fiction, 0:47:56.320 --> 0:47:59.239 and to popularize the idea of the time machine as 0:47:59.280 --> 0:48:04.480 a piece of technology, specifically a vehicle that is deliberately 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:07.359 designed to allow people to navigate time in the same 0:48:07.400 --> 0:48:11.279 way that people use regular vehicles to navigate space. And 0:48:11.520 --> 0:48:13.799 I think she says, you know, the obvious comparison if 0:48:13.800 --> 0:48:16.319 you look at this uh, at its historical setting. This 0:48:16.400 --> 0:48:18.680 is in the eighteen nineties. This would have been when 0:48:18.760 --> 0:48:22.040 we're seeing bicycles and early automobiles, So so there's a 0:48:22.040 --> 0:48:28.320 lot of vehicular consciousness at the time. But I was wondering, Okay, 0:48:28.320 --> 0:48:32.080 are there earlier examples of actual time machines like science 0:48:32.120 --> 0:48:35.080 fiction time machines. Well, it depends on what you count, 0:48:35.080 --> 0:48:37.160 Like do you count the clock that went backward? It's 0:48:37.320 --> 0:48:39.359 probably not really, that's just kind of a weird little 0:48:39.440 --> 0:48:42.960 fantasy object. Um. But I did find at least one 0:48:43.200 --> 0:48:47.160 thing that looks pretty much like a conventional time machine 0:48:47.640 --> 0:48:51.080 that does just barely pre date Wells. And this would 0:48:51.120 --> 0:48:55.560 be the nineteenth century Spanish author Enrique gas Bars novel 0:48:56.360 --> 0:49:01.520 l Anacronopete, which was apparently published one year before Wells 0:49:01.560 --> 0:49:03.680 story The Chronic Argonauts, so this would have been in 0:49:04.200 --> 0:49:09.520 eighteen eighties seven. And this novel describes a an inventor 0:49:09.719 --> 0:49:13.200 who creates this device that I think is basically a 0:49:13.239 --> 0:49:19.160 giant sealed metal box that is equipped with huge pneumatic 0:49:19.280 --> 0:49:23.400 apparatus is that allow you to travel through time, including 0:49:23.640 --> 0:49:27.240 traveling backwards through time. And I haven't read this novel 0:49:27.280 --> 0:49:29.960 in full, but I was scanning through an English translation 0:49:30.120 --> 0:49:32.600 and I came across a part that I thought was 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:35.200 so good that I wanted to share it here because 0:49:35.200 --> 0:49:38.759 it's it's where the inventor is explaining his theory of 0:49:38.840 --> 0:49:44.200 time via the example of sardines and canned peppers. Robert 0:49:44.239 --> 0:49:47.440 Are you ready for this, Okay, So the inventor says, 0:49:47.960 --> 0:49:51.759 it's common knowledge that to preserve sardines from nantes or 0:49:51.760 --> 0:49:55.680 peppers from calahora, we must remove the air from their 0:49:55.680 --> 0:50:02.080 tin cans. Wrong, we must remove the at atmosphere, and consequently, 0:50:02.480 --> 0:50:06.560 the time you see the air is no more than 0:50:06.600 --> 0:50:10.400 a compound of nitrogen and oxygen, whereas the atmosphere, in 0:50:10.440 --> 0:50:14.160 addition to consisting of eighty parts nitrogen to twenty parts oxygen, 0:50:14.520 --> 0:50:17.840 also contains an amount of water, vapor, and carbonic acid 0:50:18.200 --> 0:50:21.720 elements that are never left behind when forming a vacuum. 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:24.760 But never mind the science, let's speak to common sense. 0:50:25.400 --> 0:50:28.000 Imagine the world is a tin of red peppers from 0:50:28.000 --> 0:50:31.839 which we have not extracted the atmosphere. What happens when 0:50:31.840 --> 0:50:35.600 the can is sealed without this precaution, Time begins to 0:50:35.640 --> 0:50:39.000 exert its influence and carry out its work. First, a 0:50:39.040 --> 0:50:42.680 few molecules adhere to the sides of the container, agglomerating 0:50:42.800 --> 0:50:46.600 and solidifying, only to petrify with the passage of years 0:50:46.640 --> 0:50:49.360 and yield those substances in which we would find the 0:50:49.400 --> 0:50:52.920 mineral beginnings of primitive rock. We then note that the 0:50:52.960 --> 0:50:55.480 substance is covered with a kind of scum that is 0:50:55.560 --> 0:51:00.840 none other than rudimentary vegetation. And finally, microscopic organisms in 0:51:00.880 --> 0:51:04.239 the water vapor come to life, reproduce and develop like 0:51:04.320 --> 0:51:07.400 maggots in our tin of preserves, enriching it with the 0:51:07.480 --> 0:51:11.160 unending variety of the animal kingdom. Can you still doubt 0:51:11.280 --> 0:51:15.759 that the atmosphere is time? This is one of those 0:51:15.760 --> 0:51:21.200 things that's like wrong but genius. Yeah, like this is 0:51:21.239 --> 0:51:26.680 it's he really thought long and hard. Uh and well 0:51:27.360 --> 0:51:33.160 on this this this thoroughly uh incorrect mechanism for time. Well, 0:51:33.200 --> 0:51:35.720 I like that. It's it's sort of making the intuitive 0:51:35.719 --> 0:51:38.520 connection again between time and entropy, which we talked about 0:51:38.520 --> 0:51:41.520 in our interview with Daniel, because it's saying like, okay, 0:51:41.600 --> 0:51:46.319 so things in a can they don't rot. You, if 0:51:46.360 --> 0:51:48.880 you don't know any better, you might presume this because 0:51:48.960 --> 0:51:51.880 the time has been removed from the can and it 0:51:51.920 --> 0:51:54.879 takes time for things to rot. Well, you know, it's 0:51:54.880 --> 0:51:57.480 coming back to that that idea of of time as 0:51:57.600 --> 0:52:00.279 a as a measure of change in the universe. And 0:52:00.280 --> 0:52:02.400 if in the can things are not changing, what does 0:52:02.480 --> 0:52:06.440 that say about about time? Uh? In a way it 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:09.560 kind of serves as a nice you know, it's it's ridiculous, 0:52:09.560 --> 0:52:11.560 and it takes a second to really think about what 0:52:11.600 --> 0:52:14.480 it's even trying to say with with this atmosphere as time. 0:52:14.520 --> 0:52:16.920 But but in a way it kind of serves as 0:52:16.920 --> 0:52:18.960 an It kind of throws you off out of your 0:52:19.000 --> 0:52:22.120 your your back of the future line of thinking, where 0:52:22.160 --> 0:52:25.359 you think about time as this linear thing that you 0:52:25.600 --> 0:52:30.080 could conceivably move about in um. But but this is 0:52:30.080 --> 0:52:32.480 an entirely different model. So I had a hard time 0:52:32.560 --> 0:52:35.960 finding scrolling through the book trying to find details on 0:52:36.040 --> 0:52:39.879 exactly how how the time travel itself works, like when 0:52:39.880 --> 0:52:42.440 you're going backward. I couldn't find that part. But at 0:52:42.480 --> 0:52:44.799 least according to the wiki summary, what it says is 0:52:44.840 --> 0:52:48.960 that the machine flies backward through the atmosphere against the 0:52:49.080 --> 0:52:52.040 rotation of the Earth, and this is what allows time 0:52:52.080 --> 0:52:54.480 travel into the past. That would seem to fit with 0:52:54.520 --> 0:52:57.840 the other part about the atmosphere, but I'm not positive 0:52:57.880 --> 0:52:59.799 on this. So but maybe one day I will just 0:53:00.000 --> 0:53:03.040 read this book in full, because it looks like it 0:53:03.120 --> 0:53:05.759 might be kind of bad but pretty fun. Yeah, I 0:53:05.760 --> 0:53:10.080 mean that that concept is pretty uh, it's pretty crazy. 0:53:10.160 --> 0:53:13.560 I like it. Also, just while I'm on the subject 0:53:13.600 --> 0:53:17.080 of of l A An Acrono Pete. I gotta say 0:53:17.080 --> 0:53:18.720 that I skipped ahead to the end of the story 0:53:18.760 --> 0:53:22.320 to see what happens, and it apparently involves the inventor 0:53:22.480 --> 0:53:25.600 going mad and accelerating the time machine all the way 0:53:25.600 --> 0:53:29.880 back to the beginning of time. Oh wow, do you 0:53:29.880 --> 0:53:31.799 mind if I read this part too? Yeah? No, I 0:53:31.800 --> 0:53:33.080 want to know what he does there? What do you? 0:53:33.120 --> 0:53:36.040 What do you do? Okay? So I guess he's arguing 0:53:36.080 --> 0:53:39.040 with the other passengers in the in the time machine, 0:53:39.600 --> 0:53:43.600 and he says, it's useless, continued the lunatic, laughing convulsively. 0:53:43.960 --> 0:53:47.280 Don't you see that our speed is increased fivefold? Nothing 0:53:47.360 --> 0:53:50.680 can stop us. I have destroyed the controls and l 0:53:50.760 --> 0:53:55.520 Anacrono Pete runs headlong into the primordial white hot essence. 0:53:55.960 --> 0:53:58.799 And then people cry out horrors. Death awaits us in 0:53:58.840 --> 0:54:03.080 the chaos. K us look, and then it says, and 0:54:03.200 --> 0:54:06.360 indeed through the porthole glowed a dim light that marked 0:54:06.400 --> 0:54:09.279 the beginning of the natural world and the end of 0:54:09.320 --> 0:54:15.279 formless emptiness. But continuing backward, chaos gradually but persistently increased, 0:54:15.360 --> 0:54:18.839 and soon not even thick port glass would be enough 0:54:18.880 --> 0:54:21.680 to hold back the flood of water, earth and fire 0:54:22.200 --> 0:54:26.080 all agitated in a suspension of air via periodic violent 0:54:26.160 --> 0:54:30.320 collisions that propelled the floating vehicle through that incandescent matter. 0:54:30.880 --> 0:54:34.720 The inalterability procedure that they had all undergone had lost 0:54:34.760 --> 0:54:39.040 its potency. Asphyxia was overtaking the travelers. The walls could 0:54:39.120 --> 0:54:42.680 no longer stop the heat, and finally the glass melted, 0:54:42.840 --> 0:54:46.640 letting forth a torrent of igneous substances with the boom 0:54:46.680 --> 0:54:50.640 of a hundred volcanoes. And then there's like a like 0:54:50.680 --> 0:54:55.440 an eight line ellipsus, and then and then, uh, the 0:54:55.480 --> 0:54:58.680 inventor wakes up, having fallen asleep at a play and 0:54:59.480 --> 0:55:01.560 it was a dream. And I'm not sure if I'm 0:55:01.560 --> 0:55:04.400 not sure if the entire novel was a dream, or 0:55:04.440 --> 0:55:06.279 if only part of it leading up to that end 0:55:06.360 --> 0:55:07.759 point was a dream. I don't know. I'll have to 0:55:07.800 --> 0:55:09.640 go in and read the whole thing someday. I mean, 0:55:09.640 --> 0:55:11.720 it's almost like there there used to be a law 0:55:12.040 --> 0:55:14.799 that's said, look, you can explore the concept of time 0:55:14.840 --> 0:55:18.600 travel all you like, provided everything takes place within the 0:55:18.600 --> 0:55:20.840 space of a dream or vision. Why are they always 0:55:20.880 --> 0:55:22.880 doing the dream? I mean, why does it need to 0:55:22.920 --> 0:55:25.000 be a dream? Again? I guess it comes back to 0:55:25.120 --> 0:55:28.760 just the basic understanding that the dream dreams or where 0:55:29.360 --> 0:55:32.440 time is weird. Therefore that's where time travel is going 0:55:32.480 --> 0:55:34.920 to happen. I mean, does the author think, Wow, if 0:55:34.920 --> 0:55:36.600 people get to the end of this book and I 0:55:36.640 --> 0:55:38.799 don't say it was all a dream, They're gonna think 0:55:38.800 --> 0:55:41.400 I'm nuts. So I've got to just say, well, that 0:55:41.440 --> 0:55:44.600 didn't actually happen. Or maybe they were thinking, look, they're 0:55:44.640 --> 0:55:48.480 gonna actually invent time travel in like ten fifteen years top. 0:55:49.000 --> 0:55:53.279 And I don't want my work to them the day. 0:55:53.800 --> 0:55:56.040 But if it's all within the context of a dream, 0:55:56.160 --> 0:55:58.600 you can't say I got it wrong. That's good, that's 0:55:58.719 --> 0:56:01.600 very good. So let's see. We've looked at various concepts 0:56:01.600 --> 0:56:05.000 of time travel. Here, time travel by machine, time travel 0:56:05.040 --> 0:56:10.480 involving um manipulation of the atmosphere, time travel by magical beast, 0:56:10.960 --> 0:56:15.520 time travel by a drug, by head wound um. Oh man, 0:56:16.200 --> 0:56:18.640 there's so many ways to think about it. Time travel 0:56:18.680 --> 0:56:21.799 by cave, time travel by sleep. The cave is an 0:56:21.800 --> 0:56:24.439 interesting one too, because, of course the cave also makes 0:56:24.440 --> 0:56:28.319 one think of the tomb uh. Time travel via via 0:56:28.440 --> 0:56:31.960 death and it um. Yeah, and I guess it also 0:56:32.040 --> 0:56:34.319 reminds me of like all these various other stories of 0:56:34.440 --> 0:56:38.600 like characters venturing into realms beyond life for realms, even 0:56:38.640 --> 0:56:42.120 beyond death, venturing into the underworld or into you know, 0:56:42.360 --> 0:56:45.359 or to purgatory or paradise. You know, they're all these 0:56:45.640 --> 0:56:51.480 fantastic stories about somebody traveling elsewhere, learning something and then 0:56:51.480 --> 0:56:55.920 eventually coming back or trying to come back anyway, and 0:56:55.920 --> 0:57:00.480 and ultimately, like time travel stories are of the same mode, right, 0:57:00.800 --> 0:57:05.120 It's about somebody traveling into the fantastic realm and then returning. 0:57:05.280 --> 0:57:09.000 And that fantastic realm it might be hell, it might 0:57:09.080 --> 0:57:12.839 be um, the nineteen fifties, you know, it might be uh, 0:57:12.880 --> 0:57:15.319 you know, seven years into the future. It might be 0:57:15.400 --> 0:57:19.240 all a dream. But let's hope it's not. But regarding 0:57:19.280 --> 0:57:22.040 the l n Acrono Pete, I do want to say, well, 0:57:22.120 --> 0:57:24.080 it looks like a great story. And while it does 0:57:24.200 --> 0:57:28.320 appear to predate wells short story by one year, I 0:57:28.360 --> 0:57:30.640 think it's probably still fair to say that that Wells 0:57:30.920 --> 0:57:33.840 is probably the major popularizer of of the idea of 0:57:33.880 --> 0:57:38.240 the time machine as technology and science fiction. Yeah, Wells 0:57:38.280 --> 0:57:40.480 as Wells time machine is hard to be. Like we 0:57:40.520 --> 0:57:42.960 said before on the show, like it's it's a great book. 0:57:43.000 --> 0:57:46.680 It's still very readable, very enjoyable. All right, well, we're 0:57:46.720 --> 0:57:49.000 gonna go ahead and close this episode out, but obviously 0:57:49.000 --> 0:57:51.040 we'd love to continue to hear from everyone out there 0:57:51.440 --> 0:57:56.240 insights you have about time travel stories and myths and legends, traditions, 0:57:56.440 --> 0:57:58.840 and of course books and movies. What are some of 0:57:58.880 --> 0:58:02.120 your favorites right in? Let us know, uh, you know, 0:58:02.400 --> 0:58:05.760 the smartest time travel or to time travel stories that 0:58:05.800 --> 0:58:08.200 are just a lot of fun, even if you you 0:58:08.240 --> 0:58:10.919 don't dare think about them too hard. Can you find 0:58:10.960 --> 0:58:15.560 earlier examples of of of intentionally created vehicles for time travel? 0:58:15.640 --> 0:58:19.480 I want to know, does it go back earlier than yeah, yeah, 0:58:19.600 --> 0:58:23.160 or other time traveling magical creatures. Obviously I want to 0:58:23.160 --> 0:58:25.760 hear about that. In the meantime, if you want to 0:58:25.800 --> 0:58:27.600 check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, 0:58:27.640 --> 0:58:29.080 you can find them in the Stuff to Blow your 0:58:29.120 --> 0:58:32.920 Mind podcast feed, available wherever you get your podcasts. We 0:58:33.040 --> 0:58:36.920 have Artifact episodes on Wednesday's, Core episodes of the show 0:58:37.000 --> 0:58:40.160 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail, 0:58:40.160 --> 0:58:42.240 and on Friday we do Weird How Cinema. That's our 0:58:42.280 --> 0:58:44.960 time to set aside most serious matters and just focus 0:58:45.040 --> 0:58:48.040 in on a weird film. And we do occasionally cover 0:58:48.120 --> 0:58:51.280 time travel films. There we did, uh, we did what 0:58:51.520 --> 0:58:55.000 troys and transfers to time after time? And was there 0:58:55.040 --> 0:58:57.440 another one? I don't know if you count Morosco with 0:58:57.480 --> 0:59:00.800 the Sun going backward, but well we'll take Well that's 0:59:00.840 --> 0:59:03.000 that's three time travel movies and I'm sure there will 0:59:03.040 --> 0:59:05.280 be more in the future. Guess what's coming up next. 0:59:05.520 --> 0:59:11.040 Transfers nine uh, transfers nine uh. The atmosphere is time 0:59:11.480 --> 0:59:14.200 where they where they put Jack Death in a sardine can. 0:59:15.640 --> 0:59:17.880 I would do I would do. Transfers three, Trancers three 0:59:17.920 --> 0:59:21.600 is pretty fun anyway. Huge thanks as always to our 0:59:21.680 --> 0:59:25.240 excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like 0:59:25.280 --> 0:59:27.160 to get in touch with us with feedback on this 0:59:27.200 --> 0:59:29.760 episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, 0:59:29.840 --> 0:59:32.000 or just to say hello, you can email us at 0:59:32.200 --> 0:59:42.720 contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com Stuff 0:59:42.720 --> 0:59:45.320 to Blow Your Mind's production of I Heart Radio. For 0:59:45.440 --> 0:59:47.400 more podcasts for my Heart Radio, this is the I 0:59:47.440 --> 0:59:50.280 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to 0:59:50.320 --> 1:00:04.560 your favorite shows. Past prop