WEBVTT - From the Vault: Time Traveler Zero, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.440 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:12.039 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.840 Time for an episode from the Vault. Today we're airing 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:23.279 Time Traveler zero, Part one, which originally published on December. Uh. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.599 This was I think when we were trying to see 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.000 how far back we could trace the idea of time 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:32.240 travel in speculative fiction, mythology and so forth. Yeah, how 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:34.920 far back does the idea of the time traveler go? 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:37.400 And what did we have before that? This is a 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.919 real fun two parter that we put together. And this 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:45.760 is part one. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:55.360 production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.960 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.040 Joe McCormick. And we've been adding. Uh, I guess quite 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.319 a bit about time travel recently on the show, first 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:06.880 probably in our our Weird House Cinema episode about the 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.200 nineteen seventy nine movie Time After Time, and then more 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:14.200 recently during our chat with Daniel Whiteson about astrophysics and 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.520 time travel, and also a little talk about time travel 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.480 science fiction as well. That's right. One of the main 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.760 takeaways was that Daniel is is pretty thoroughly against the 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.840 idea of the plausibility of changing the past. Right. But 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.280 you know, I think one of the more interesting questions 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.280 to come back to in this episode of Stuff to 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.040 put your mind is um is not just thinking about okay, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.040 is this possible? And what would you know, what assumptions 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:42.760 would we have to make about the universe for this 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:44.560 sort of time travel to work, or this sort of 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:46.959 time travel? What sorts of time travel are we engaging 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.160 in all the time? Uh? Instead of asking is this possible? 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.400 Are we doing it too? Instead look at the question 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:57.160 what does this idea reveal about human perspectives of time? 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.160 Where does the time travel idea and come from? And 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.800 how far back in time do we see humans engaging 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:09.160 in this sort of imaginative thought. It's a great question, 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:15.280 and immediately all kinds of uh, secondary questions come to mind, like, okay, 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.000 so time travel is one of the most popular plot 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:23.000 devices of modern fiction. But can you how far back 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:27.720 can you think of literature and stories that feature time travel? Suddenly, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.840 if you go just more than a few hundred years back, 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.480 examples start getting very sparse. At least, you know the 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:35.960 kind of things you can think of off the top 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.240 of your head, and it might start to cause you 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.040 to wonder, like, did something change in in recent centuries 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.160 that made this idea more more tangible to people? And 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.120 are the earlier examples and what would what could we 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.640 learn about our conception of time by looking at those? Yeah, 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.000 I ask yourself the question, what's your favorite ancient myth 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.240 about time travel? And and it's possible you have an answer, 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.080 because we will im back to a few possible answers. 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.000 But for for many of you out there, you might 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.080 just be a bit dumbfounded, and you might say, well, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.079 you know, uh, you know, there are these mythic figures 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.440 and they're they're traveling all over the place, and they're 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.160 doing all sorts of amazing things, things that are so 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.919 outrageous you wouldn't even see it in a comic book today. Um, 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.960 But traveling through time becomes something of a scarcity. So 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.920 it leads you to wonder, Yeah, is time travel just 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:30.760 this relatively recent cultural invention, this idea of time travel? Um? 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:32.679 And why would that be? Because you know, as we 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.080 try to drive home on the show, humans of centuries 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.440 and millennia past were deep thinkers. They were deep dreamers, 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.600 And yet there there are not for the most part, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.720 uh you know, large caches of old folk tales about 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.520 princes going back in time to rescue princesses or traveling 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.880 into the future and so forth. Um, there are no 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.400 tales of God's skipping around in different ages of the universe. 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.960 So obviously time is an undeniable fact of our, of 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.720 our physical reality. But I was trying to think about, like, 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.480 how is it that humans first put together a concept 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.360 of time, a time as a kind of substance that 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.800 they could talk about and and manipulate with and sort 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.039 of you know, turn around and look at within the 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.359 mind and uh so, uh so. One really interesting source 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.359 that came across addressing this is a section in a 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.560 book called The Unfolding of Language, An Evolutionary Tour of 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:33.840 Mankind's Greatest invention. This is by an author named Guy Deutscher. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.039 This book was published by McMillan in two thousand five. 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.039 Deutscher is an academic linguist. He used to be affiliated 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.440 with Cambridge and with the University of leyden Um. I'm 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.360 not sure if he has any affiliations now, but shout 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.760 out quickly that I came to this connection to Guy 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.039 Deutscher's work by way of a mention in a Live 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.719 Science article by Adam Man, which actually pointed me in 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.760 the direction of two very interesting sources. So so good 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.120 on article. But the reason I wanted to talk about 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.839 this book by by Guy Deutscher here is that it 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:11.000 addresses what we can learn from metaphors in everyday speech 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.760 about the way our minds work. And so the entry 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.960 point here is that he's talking about the contrast between 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.599 poetic metaphors, metaphors that arouse a sense of strangeness and 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:28.640 wonder and utterly mundane metaphors. So a couple of examples 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.200 we can compare. Imagine you are reading a poem and 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.719 you come across the line tread softly because you tread 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.479 on my dreams. This is a famous passage from a 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:43.159 poem by William Butler yates uh. And there's a conceptual 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:48.039 leap here that makes this image of treading upon dreams striking. 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:52.880 You're asked to imagine physically stepping on a purely mental 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.760 construct without physical form, and I think it's that gap. 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.400 It's like exactly to the degree that it doesn't quite fit. 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.240 And yet you can still understand what it means that 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.560 makes the metaphor striking. Yeah, and now I'm just imagining 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.480 his dreams as just a big old snack, a big 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.760 yellow snack on the ground, and U no step on snack. 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.760 But I'm sure that's not what what the poet originally intended. 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:21.040 My dreams are rattling and hissing and bearing fangs. Venom 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:25.120 is dripping from the fangs of my dreams. But so anyway, 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.120 so yeah, this is a good poetic metaphor, and it 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.240 strikes us as poetic. It's it's like strange. It makes 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:34.599 us have that feeling of all you get when you 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.640 read it and when you read a good poem. But then, uh, deut. 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:42.000 Your contrasts that with reading a news article about a 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:47.320 senator proposing tough legislation to fight crime. Now, this is 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.400 not a striking metaphor. It's utterly mundane. And yet if 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.680 you stop to think about it, the concept of tough 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.080 legislation is just as much of a leap as treading 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.159 on dreams. Like you hear, you're saying that this intangible 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.400 sort of social thing a law, has the quality of 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.320 a physical material, like it would be difficult to cut 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.200 or chew, and so why do these phrases feel so different? Well, 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.680 Deutscher argues that it's mostly because of familiarity. Tough legislation 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:22.800 uses a familiar, even cliche, metaphorical understanding of toughness, so 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.840 it's not surprising or striking in the way that treading 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.520 on dreams is. And he notes that metaphors that are 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.440 so familiar that they've lost their vitality and they no 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.600 longer strike us as poetic are sometimes referred to as 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.640 dead metaphors, which I think the irony they're maybe not irony. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.920 The the interesting thing is that's a literary cliche, dead metaphors, 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.920 invoking a biological metaphor to describe the effects of words 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.960 and phrases. One that comes to mind instantly, and perhaps 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.800 because we're talking about time, is the idea of killing 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.720 time that all the time, but it it doesn't really 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.800 do anything like it doesn't like the phrase killing time 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.400 does not really summon any kind of novel image in 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.440 my mind. It doesn't make me think about time as 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.240 an organism or time as the body or anything. It's 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.600 just this dumb thing people say. But that I think, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.760 actually killing time would be an incredibly striking metaphor. If 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.160 you've never heard that before and you just came across 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.360 it in a poem, Yeah, the first person who said 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.520 it was probably a genius. Yeah, Imagining time is a 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.720 little creature that's being bludgeoned to death by your I 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.120 don't know, by your youth scrolling your phone. But then 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.120 jumping off this point, he goes on to make what 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:34.800 I think is a really interesting point. So I just 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.640 want to read from from Deutscher's book here. But there's 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.280 more familiarity than individual acquaintance. For most metaphors in ordinary 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.720 language are also familiar on a much deeper level. Suppose, 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.600 for instance, that during an election campaign, you read in 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.920 a newspaper that quote critics derided the new election manifesto 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.199 as nothing more than a sou flay of promises. This 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:02.160 phrase is clearly metaphorical by anyone's standards. A sou flay 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.680 is is properly made of egg whites, not promises. But 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.280 although you may never have heard this particular metaphor before, 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.440 it is still unlikely to strike you as a great 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.599 poetic coup or as something entirely out of the ordinary. 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.760 The reason must be that su flay of promises belongs 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:23.640 to a larger context, which is familiar. And uh so 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:29.280 this is because Deutscher argues, quite strangely, metaphors based in food, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.520 eating and cooking are very commonly used to describe mental 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.640 phenomena such as ideas, thoughts, and emotions. And then he 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.280 goes on to just give a huge laundry list of examples. 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:47.480 You can think of anger, simmering, resentment, boiling, or uh, 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.240 Johnny is chewing over a new concept. You need time 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.800 to digest this information. Uh you know, the people won't 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.719 swallow these lies or are you just gonna lap up 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:03.120 that pablum from those politicians? People devour books and so forth. Um, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.520 he says, we can have sweet dreams, bitter hatreds, sour relations, 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.000 half baked ideas, and just goes on and on. Once 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.000 you notice it, it's astonishing how much of the way 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.640 we talk about feelings and ideas is based in food. 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.640 M M. Yeah, and of course all the most I 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.640 think most of these examples we've been rolling through here, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.600 or a number of them anyway, have distinct ties to 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.720 Western cuisine. So of course, you know, we can easily 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:34.160 imagine that in in various other uh international cuisines and 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:38.080 in other languages you have the same thing going on. Yeah, totally, totally, 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.120 and in fact, I think we we've even talked about 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.080 this to some extent on the show before. Like metaphors, 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.160 you know, sort of mental content, metaphors based in food, 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:48.720 They're common in other cultures, not so much in in 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.760 English speaking ones. I do wonder, though, if the promises 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.160 is not lost on folks who haven't themselves made or 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.760 attempted to make a sufflay, because it seems to me 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:01.400 like part of it. It's the idea that yes, it's 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:05.760 it's it's a laborious process to make, and then it deflat, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.000 It can easily deflate. It's kind of an empty dish, 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.360 and in some regard that even though it looks fantastic, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.840 it is mostly air. And if you don't actualize that, 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.760 then then maybe something of the metaphor is lost. You know, honestly, 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.000 I did not even consciously make that connection. Maybe unconsciously 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.240 I did, But you've opened my mind to a new 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.520 new dimension of the super you. Maybe you're too familiar 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.320 with the sou fla and you take it for like me. 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:30.800 I I rarely make suffla, and when I do, I 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.280 am intimidated by the process because I know what is 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.400 involved and what is what is possible, Like I don't 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.160 trust myself enough. Uh, so I'm ever on guard. You 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.160 are right to fear it. But anyway, to pick back 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.440 up with the Deutscher, so he summarizes what he's just 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.400 been talking about by saying, quote, there's a well established 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.480 link in our mind between the two domains which unites 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:55.040 all the individual images into a broader conceptual metaphor. Ideas 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.080 are food. And thus when we hear a phrase like 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.240 su flay of promises, the image to do is not 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:04.560 sounds so surprising because it fits neatly into this familiar frame. 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.880 And so for Deutscher, this is an example of conceptual metaphors. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:15.040 The the quote mappings of one domain onto another and 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.040 so uh for some reason, maybe it might be interesting 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.079 to speculate on what that reason would be. It's just 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.240 very easy for us to think about the domain of 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.480 thoughts and feelings in terms of the domain of food. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.000 But this isn't the only conceptual mapping like this, And 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.920 here is where we get back to time. Deutscher makes 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:39.199 the case that there is a similar natural metaphorical domain 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:44.000 overlap between time and space. Now, on one hand, you 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.559 might think, well, that totally makes sense, because you a 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.199 twenty one century person who is somewhat literate in the sciences, 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.200 you know that space and time are actually linked in 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.599 modern physics. But the point is that these conventions of 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:01.640 language long predate Einstein or any knowledge of general relativity 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:06.120 or the concept of space time. Since prehistory, there is 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.440 clear evidence in language itself that humans have naturally tended 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.280 to think and talk about time as if time were 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.560 a type of space, or as if the rules of 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.120 space applied to it. So, once again, Deutscher gives a 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.600 ton of examples. He writes, quote, consider some of the 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:28.240 simplest words we use to describe spatial relations, prepositions such 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:34.720 as in at by, from to, behind, within, and through. 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.199 And then he gives a ton of examples within actual phrases. 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.320 So the idea of like from London to Paris, you 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.880 can compare to from Monday to Friday, or in England 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.679 the same way you would say in January or in 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.480 the sixteenth century, you can stand at the door or 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:57.360 you can arrive at noon. All these prepositions. He's saying 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:02.120 a flow originally from the linguistic domain of space and 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.320 come to be applied to time, uh and beyond this, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.600 he argues that this is not just a quirk of English, 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.480 this is true of literally every language that has ever 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:14.319 been studied. There are no exceptions. Every language on Earth 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.520 talks about time as if it were a type of space, 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.760 which suggests something if that's true, suggests something very ancient 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.040 and powerful about that link in our consciousness. I'm reminded 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:31.000 of a part of Barry Lopez's book Arctic Dreams where 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.760 he's talking about this um conversation between an Artic Arctic 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.640 explorer and uh, an Inuit Uh. And the Inuit man 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.560 has has asked if this pair of binoculars allows him 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.800 to see into tomorrow and um and in this particular instance, 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.120 you know, there's a certain amount of you know, perhaps 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.520 you know a lot of it about the languages here, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.360 you know, and uh and uh. But it it kind 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.440 of gets to this idea too of in a place 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.600 where you have wide open space is and uh and 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.000 and you know a fair amount of moving around and 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.400 resources are spread out, like you know what the individual 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.240 was asking, like, well, this binoculars allow me to see 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.880 something that I would not be able to reach until tomorrow, 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.360 and that's always just stuck, stuck with me because it 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.480 it gets into this, it touches on this spatial idea 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:25.920 of of time but also within a realm that in 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.520 a geography that at least for many of us that 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.520 you know, it makes it a little easier to comprehend 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.960 that firm connection like tomorrow is not only um, you know, 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.320 something that will happen to me, It is also it 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.360 is also a place I will be because I know 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.320 where I can see potentially see where I will be tomorrow. 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.280 You know what I'm saying. Oh yeah, And I think 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.960 that's a fantastic point that actually connects to something else 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.040 I wanted to talk about, which is um the idea 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.800 that Okay, so the metaphorical overlap between space and time 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.160 appears to only flow in one direction. You might find 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.160 a stray counter example somewhere, but generally the ideas that 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.840 our human languages take concepts and metaphors that begin as 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.680 descriptions of space and then apply them to time, not 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.360 the other way around. So we talk about the present 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.720 as if it were spatially here, and we visualize the 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.360 past as if it were physically behind us. And like, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.560 if you stop to think about the physicality even the 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:27.080 biology of that, the past we imagine usually as in 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.640 the direction of our butts. You know, behind us, the 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.960 future is physically in front of us. And this is 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.800 one of those great things that like it's so mundane 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:38.920 that you don't stop to notice it. But when you 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.440 pay attention to that, I suspect it's like this and 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.240 not the other way around. You know, it's not that 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.920 we imagine the future as behind us, in the past 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.560 in front of us because of totally contingent facts about 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.160 how our bodies move. If you're walking in a straight line, 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.160 the area in front of you is space that you 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.600 will occupy in the future, and the space behind you 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.920 is the place you occupied in the past. And so 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:08.399 you can think about alternative biology, different body morphology leading 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.320 to different conceptions of time. Like if crabs evolved to 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.439 possess abstract intelligence as language, I kind of suspect they 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.800 might visualize the past and future to the left and right, 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.080 since they often walk sideways instead of forwards and backwards. 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.520 And then now is simply the eat I guess. Yeah. 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.919 It also makes you think about the way, you know, 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.760 eyes are positioned on different organisms, thinking about say, herbivores, 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.320 whose whose eyes are often positioned more on the sides 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.760 of the head in a way to provide more panoramic 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.280 view of what's happening, so they can have a better 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.120 idea of where the predators are coming in versus the 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.040 the eyesight of a predator. That is more about what 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:54.800 is directly in front of me. What is the thing 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.600 I am after? Right? Yeah, so that makes me wonder 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.920 if our conception of time is also so influenced by 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.520 our heads being shaped more like carnivore heads. But anyway, 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.040 to wrap up the section about Guy Deutscher's book, I 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:08.840 just want to read one more thing. He says, quote. 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.159 This link between space and time is so entrenched in 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.159 our cognition that it is extremely difficult to extricate ourselves 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.040 from it and appreciate that time cannot literally be long 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.280 or short, unlike sticks or pieces of string, nor can 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:29.720 time literally pass unlike a train. Time cannot go forwards 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.000 and backwards anymore than it goes sideways, diagonally or downwards. 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.200 Time doesn't actually go anywhere at all. Uh, And I 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.280 think this is a great point. The link in our 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.159 language is so deep it's difficult even to talk about 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.960 it because we don't really have any language for time 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.080 that is not a metaphor based on space, except maybe 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.760 in pure mathematical expressions. Yeah, we have this. Yeah, like 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.560 you said, we have this, this entire suite, multiple suites 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.240 of of terms we used to talk about time, time, 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.240 and yet very often we're we're at a lack to 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.960 to really define time um and and certainly it's it's 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.520 hard to just really settle in on a definition of 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.200 what it is. What one that I often come back 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.520 to is the idea of time is the rate of 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.600 change in the universe. And if you if you stop 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.560 yourself and all, if you stop yourself and all of 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.520 this and start like asking questions about time travel and 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.760 that like that in regards to the rate of change 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.760 in the universe, things get silly really quickly, you know, like, 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:30.879 like what is time? It's the rate of change in 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:33.800 the universe. Well, can I can I do that backwards? 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.119 Going to do that in reverse? Uh? Can I like 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.639 travel back? Like? It's like asking is this It's like saying, 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.000 you know what I really like wet, I would like 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.080 to travel to Wet. What do you mean you would 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:46.399 like to travel to what you want to travel to, 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.760 somewhere that is wet, because you can't just travel to 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.560 wet Yeah exactly. I mean, yeah, that's a great metaphor. 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:55.760 And even then, I mean it makes you wonder. Okay. 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:58.880 So on one hand, I think the rate of change 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:00.919 in the universe is a good way of trying to 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.840 describe what time is. But does the does the idea 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.680 of rate not itself in a way kind of assume 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.240 time like it's just yeah, there's it's you can't get 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.160 under it, right, it is in it in itself. It's 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.240 also an imperfect definition. Um, but I guess the reason 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.200 I come back to it is that it is significantly 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.919 different from this a lot of these metaphors we end 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.000 up using, so it kind of it kind of throws 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.960 a wrench into your your cognitive process, you know, totally. 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.640 Oh and I guess one last thing. This isn't strictly 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:32.560 about time, but I just thought I would mention it 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.080 because I thought it was interesting. Deutscher actually does go 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.840 beyond this, So he goes from talking about how metaphors 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.400 of space are applied to time, but then they keep 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:46.840 being applied to even deeper levels of of other concepts 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.080 and language. Uh. So he makes this argument about how 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:56.040 about how concepts of space flow through metaphorical use to time, 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.360 and then from time to causes or reasons and all 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.199 these other things. So you have something, you have a 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.800 preposition like from which originally describes space, so you could 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:11.160 be from Tucson, Arizona, and then that can be applied 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.440 to time, so you can remember something from last Tuesday, 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.880 and then that can be applied to causes or reasons 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.640 for things. So the example he gives is he shivers 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:25.320 from the cold. Anyway, I love stuff like this because 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.120 there's so much that's fascinating about the way that we 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.040 use language. I guess it's fascinating to me because we 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:33.840 all do it, and we do it all the time, 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.200 and we don't notice we're doing it. So just being 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:40.040 asked to stop and observe the words you're using and 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.120 what that reveals about how you think is is often 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.520 extremely eye opening. Yeah, I mean this this linear view 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.359 of things that it falls into everything. Like even as 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.160 we talk about ideas, you know, we're building things out 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.120 of sentences. We're talking about uh forming an idea out 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.920 of this and uh building up to this idea or 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:10.159 riving at this conclusion and so forth. Yeah. Thank as 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:12.240 I was thinking about all this, I started thinking about 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:16.800 some of the terms used by Merchia eliade Um, who 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.040 you know, in in his work, you often have this 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:24.600 this separation of time into mythic time and profane time. 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:30.199 So mythic time is when gods and heroes experience their victories, defeats, 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:32.480 and their dramas you know, at the time of of 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:37.480 mythic stories playing out, um, during during which these these 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:41.439 various exploits shaped the earth shaped our culture. But then 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:45.000 during profane time, nothing that we do has any value 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.200 except to the extent that it recreates or in some 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.560 way connects us with events that occurred during mythic time. Right. 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.640 So Eliot was a it was a scholar of religion, 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.240 and yeah, I understand this was one of his main points. 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:00.240 It was that a lot of what we think of 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:05.959 his religion either is or is derived from attempts to 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:11.000 recreate or re enact things that allegedly took place in 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:15.280 this other mythic time. Right. And of course this connection 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:18.479 that he's talking about between mythic past and p paining present. Uh, 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.840 you know, it's not quite like a physical journey, uh 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.240 that you know, via time machine between two times. Though 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:28.359 though I suppose characters who venture into a realm of 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:31.480 gods or spirits is in some way they are making 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.639 a journey into mythic time, a realm where mythic time 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:38.800 is either still going on or perhaps is has just happened, 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:41.800 or is in some way you know, more present. Um. 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:44.240 You know. Again, it's not nothing like these modern ideas 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:47.160 of time travel, but but it certainly got me thinking 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:49.600 about all of this. Oh absolutely, And to stay on 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:51.800 the subject of myth and religion, I mean, one thing 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.120 that I think is kind of interesting and understanding how 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:58.840 humans imagine time throughout history is sort of the difference 0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:03.320 between myth and legend as generally understood by by scholars 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:07.119 of religion. Where Uh, the idea is that myth is 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:11.320 a story that takes place, uh you know, often telling 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.320 some kind of origin of something. But it's also a 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:17.399 story that takes place, usually in a time that is 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:23.320 somehow removed from your own timeline, whereas legend is something 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:28.240 that appears to blur into your own your own actual history. 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:31.359 So they might both be stories that are not like 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:34.119 literal descriptions of things that took place in the past, 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:36.680 but myth it's kind of like it would be hard 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:39.760 to say when the myth actually took place, whereas you 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:42.639 could say a legend is about something that allegedly happened 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:46.080 a thousand years ago, right, So like a legendary king, 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:49.760 a legendary emperor is in many cases the sort of 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:52.760 individual that historians and archaeologists can look to and say, like, well, 0:24:52.800 --> 0:24:55.640 who's the actual person that this may be based upon. 0:24:55.920 --> 0:25:00.000 Whereas when you get into the mythic mythic kings, mythic emperor's, Uh, 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.639 these are figures that are often uh, you know, indecipherable 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:07.520 from God's not to say that they don't there's not 0:25:07.600 --> 0:25:11.400 a potential for some connection to actual living humans, but uh, 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:14.080 in many cases, yeah, it is about the things that 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:18.680 occurred before, the stories that define the world in which 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:21.440 we live. I think it's interesting that there are different 0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:24.280 ways to imagine the past, whether or not what you're 0:25:24.320 --> 0:25:26.960 imagining is is accurate or not. I mean, that's sort 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:28.720 of beside the point right now. Just like if you're 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:33.359 imagining what happened long ago, there are sort of different timelines. 0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:35.040 You know, is there there's a past that's kind of 0:25:35.080 --> 0:25:38.159 inaccessible to us, and then the past that you can 0:25:38.200 --> 0:25:41.320 at least imagine as being accessible even if you don't 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:44.119 think you could say, travel back to it. And I 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:48.240 think in a way that has sort of changed maybe 0:25:48.280 --> 0:25:52.000 in twentieth century science fiction at least where one thing 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:55.399 that seems true maybeing disagree rob about twentieth century science 0:25:55.440 --> 0:25:59.719 fiction is that, uh, this imagines there's a leveling effect 0:25:59.760 --> 0:26:03.080 where okay, no, now there's just there's a timeline and 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:04.960 if you have a time machine, you can go back 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:08.320 to anything forward or backward that actually happened or will 0:26:08.359 --> 0:26:13.000 actually happen. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um. It reminds me of 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:15.760 you know something else that the Iliote was was big 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:20.639 on this idea of archaic cultures accessing circular sacred time, 0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:24.719 a time of origins and creations, while modern cultures use 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:27.919 a linear sacred time that has essentially bolted onto the 0:26:27.960 --> 0:26:31.680 timeline of profane time. Um. But but in all of 0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:34.320 the the you know, the origin of things was important. 0:26:34.880 --> 0:26:37.840 Uh So, like just thinking again about mythic time, it 0:26:38.320 --> 0:26:41.240 in some ways it feels like, well, the mythic time 0:26:41.640 --> 0:26:44.000 is more real, like it's more of a real place 0:26:44.320 --> 0:26:47.680 than uh you know, whatever happened last year was whatever 0:26:47.680 --> 0:26:52.480 happened last year wasn't important at all, at least aside 0:26:52.480 --> 0:26:56.720 from any ways in which it recreated mythic time um. 0:26:56.800 --> 0:26:58.439 And so I was I was thinking about, like, well, 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:02.399 twenty century ideas of all of this, um, and it 0:27:02.440 --> 0:27:04.239 made me made me think about, well, some of our 0:27:04.280 --> 0:27:07.439 our time travel stories are modern time travel stories. And 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:11.119 I started thinking about Back to the Future, which I 0:27:11.400 --> 0:27:14.880 don't know where this falls in your introduction to time travel, Joe, 0:27:14.920 --> 0:27:18.240 but I have a feeling that either Back to the 0:27:18.240 --> 0:27:22.879 Future or the old adaptation like the nineteen fifties or 0:27:22.920 --> 0:27:26.199 sixties adaptation of the time machine, one of those was 0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:29.359 my first introduction to the idea of time travel, and 0:27:29.440 --> 0:27:32.040 it was it was probably Back to the Future. Oh yeah, 0:27:32.080 --> 0:27:33.520 I can't say for sure, but Back to the Future 0:27:33.560 --> 0:27:35.320 has got to be up there for me. It was 0:27:35.600 --> 0:27:39.080 certainly one of the earliest, and it benefits from being 0:27:39.080 --> 0:27:42.840 the kind of movie that feels canonical. Um. You know, 0:27:43.280 --> 0:27:45.399 even when you're a kid, I think you detect some 0:27:45.480 --> 0:27:48.160 kind of differences in the quality of cinema, even at 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:51.000 that age where I liked every movie I saw, there 0:27:51.000 --> 0:27:53.240 are some movies that feel kind of like, Okay, that's 0:27:53.280 --> 0:27:55.359 just some weird thing I saw on TV one time, 0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:57.760 And there are other movies that feel like a part 0:27:57.880 --> 0:28:00.919 of the canon of culture and and Back to the 0:28:00.920 --> 0:28:04.520 Future felt that way. Yeah. Absolutely, And so it got 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:08.000 me wondering thinking back on it now, to what extent 0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:12.160 any time travel story is essentially taking a particular time 0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:14.720 in the past. Obviously, we're just talking about time travel 0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:17.840 stories that concerned the past and establishing it as a 0:28:17.920 --> 0:28:21.720 kind of sacred time, one that explains conditions in our 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:26.119 profane present time. And um, you know, in terms of 0:28:26.119 --> 0:28:28.359 Back to the Future, Uh, you know, this is this 0:28:28.400 --> 0:28:30.600 is a story that that doesn't just concern the mid 0:28:30.680 --> 0:28:34.720 nineteen fifties. It idolizes the mid nineteen fifties. It fetishizes 0:28:34.760 --> 0:28:38.200 the nineteen fifties. Uh, it's this is a time of 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:42.680 great admiration for this film, a period of of iconic 0:28:42.720 --> 0:28:46.560 and highly sanitized American nostalgia. Um. And it is also 0:28:46.680 --> 0:28:49.760 the time that defines our characters. You know, this is 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:53.800 the this is the age during which Marty McFly's parents 0:28:54.040 --> 0:28:57.600 were themselves youths. This is the time during which they 0:28:57.640 --> 0:29:02.320 would come together and eventually create Marty McFly. Well, In 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:04.280 another way, you could almost say that in Back to 0:29:04.360 --> 0:29:09.160 the Future, Marty McFly travels back to a cinematic nineteen 0:29:09.200 --> 0:29:12.800 fifties more than a real nineteen fifties, Like he's traveling 0:29:12.800 --> 0:29:16.440 to a mythic time almost, because it's like, yeah, it's 0:29:16.480 --> 0:29:19.000 sort of what you're because like the stuff he sees 0:29:19.040 --> 0:29:22.520 when he gets there are not so much based in history, 0:29:22.560 --> 0:29:26.880 but they're based on the images people remember from like 0:29:27.040 --> 0:29:29.640 movies and TV of the nineteen fifties, So you know, 0:29:29.720 --> 0:29:33.080 the soda shop with the counter and the you know, 0:29:33.160 --> 0:29:36.120 all that kind of stuff. It is a mythic reality 0:29:36.240 --> 0:29:39.920 that explains the origins of things and uh and and 0:29:39.920 --> 0:29:44.160 and and and provides this idea of how things should be. Um. 0:29:44.200 --> 0:29:46.080 So it's yeah, it's it's kind of interesting to think 0:29:46.080 --> 0:29:48.640 about the Back of the Future in terms of of 0:29:48.720 --> 0:29:52.080 Iliades writings. By the way, I had to do the 0:29:52.120 --> 0:29:53.680 math on this because I always find this kind of 0:29:53.680 --> 0:29:57.680 thing um interesting but also um alarming. You know, it 0:29:57.680 --> 0:30:00.320 makes me feel old to realize this. So this is 0:30:00.440 --> 0:30:02.720 a movie Back to the Future that concerned a jaunt 0:30:02.760 --> 0:30:06.120 from nineteen eighty five to nineteen fifty five. If you 0:30:06.160 --> 0:30:08.800 were to take an identical jaunt today from the year 0:30:09.560 --> 0:30:12.080 one that would take you back to the year nineteen. 0:30:13.160 --> 0:30:16.040 That is the year that Highlander two came out. Christof 0:30:16.080 --> 0:30:19.400 Lambert goes back thirty years, gives himself a pep talk, 0:30:19.880 --> 0:30:22.880 uh you know, like tells him how to stand up 0:30:22.920 --> 0:30:26.440 for himself. Ends up with Lambert punching Sean Connery in 0:30:26.440 --> 0:30:30.040 the face. Like, yeah, I can see it. Also the 0:30:30.120 --> 0:30:35.720 year of dan Ackroyd's Nothing but Trouble, a pivotal time, 0:30:35.800 --> 0:30:40.480 mythic time for American culture. They're also cool as Ice, 0:30:40.520 --> 0:30:43.760 the Vanilla Ice movie Health there you go, a time 0:30:43.800 --> 0:30:47.920 of heroes and gods. Basically, what we're saying was a 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:51.160 weird year for films. It's when you try to look 0:30:51.200 --> 0:30:53.280 for the real standouts. I mean there are You've got 0:30:53.320 --> 0:30:56.520 stuff like Barton Faint going on, um you know, but 0:30:56.960 --> 0:30:59.160 you know, it's also the year of stuff like Freddie's Dead, 0:30:59.200 --> 0:31:02.040 the Final Nightmare. There. Oh, we did have a time 0:31:02.040 --> 0:31:05.040 travel uh a movie there. We also had Bill and 0:31:05.080 --> 0:31:07.760 Ted came out their Bogus Journey. That would be the 0:31:07.760 --> 0:31:10.920 second one. Okay, well we gotta stop this or we'll 0:31:10.960 --> 0:31:15.400 just keep going. Okay, the whole episodes, So anyway, just 0:31:15.440 --> 0:31:18.000 getting back at the basic point. Mainstream time travel tropes 0:31:18.600 --> 0:31:21.200 um are not that old, and will explore some examples 0:31:21.200 --> 0:31:24.520 of this shortly. UM. While time travel narratives are in 0:31:24.560 --> 0:31:27.160 some ways like other complex ways of thinking about the 0:31:27.160 --> 0:31:29.560 past in the present, they're not quite the same, but 0:31:30.160 --> 0:31:32.320 you can easily get into just a whole argument of 0:31:32.360 --> 0:31:34.600 like looking back at old things and old stories and saying, 0:31:34.720 --> 0:31:37.360 to what extent is this time travel? To what extent 0:31:37.480 --> 0:31:40.760 is it not? Because think about a lot of modern 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:44.000 time travel stories. What happens you have Marty McFly, he 0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:45.960 goes back, what does he do? He meets his dad? 0:31:46.360 --> 0:31:48.720 You know, uh, there there are other tales of this sort. 0:31:48.760 --> 0:31:52.239 You know where you're it's about connecting with ancestors, and 0:31:52.320 --> 0:31:56.520 of course communication and connection with ancestors is widespread in 0:31:56.600 --> 0:32:00.640 religion and myth and folklore, though these only take on 0:32:00.680 --> 0:32:04.160 the forum of spirit communication of some sort, not physical 0:32:04.320 --> 0:32:07.480 or even holographic journeys. Right, a lot of the time 0:32:07.520 --> 0:32:11.320 travel stories about interacting with ancestors are either there. Uh. 0:32:11.640 --> 0:32:13.960 To recall some of the language we used in our 0:32:14.080 --> 0:32:17.040 Weird House Cinema episode about time after time, they're often 0:32:17.200 --> 0:32:19.920 debugging history stories where you're trying to go back and 0:32:20.000 --> 0:32:22.880 fix something that went wrong with one of your ancestors, 0:32:22.920 --> 0:32:26.600 to make the present better, or to undo the mischief 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:29.240 of another time traveler who screwed up the future by 0:32:29.440 --> 0:32:33.080 doing something with your ancestors. And sometimes there are some 0:32:33.080 --> 0:32:36.320 stories where they, you know, they try to maintain the 0:32:36.360 --> 0:32:39.440 consistent timeline by having a person go back and like 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:43.040 do something with their ancestors that in turn was necessary 0:32:43.120 --> 0:32:46.080 for the present to happen the way it did. You know, 0:32:46.200 --> 0:32:48.760 the stories of paradoxes where somebody goes back and they 0:32:48.800 --> 0:32:52.960 become their own grandfather or something creepy. Yeah, Now, for 0:32:53.000 --> 0:32:55.760 some answers, Uh, In all this, I look to A 0:32:55.800 --> 0:32:58.960 wonderful book came out in two thousand one by Paul J. 0:32:59.280 --> 0:33:02.360 Nayan and all electrical engineer and science author. It's called 0:33:02.640 --> 0:33:06.680 Time Travel, Time Machines, Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and 0:33:06.720 --> 0:33:10.640 Science Fiction. And it's a it's a real fun, very 0:33:10.680 --> 0:33:12.760 readable book. You can still get copies of this. I 0:33:12.760 --> 0:33:14.160 think there's been a couple of at least a couple 0:33:14.200 --> 0:33:17.560 of editions that have come out over the years. Um 0:33:17.640 --> 0:33:20.440 and Uh. It deals with everything that's mentioned in the title, 0:33:20.520 --> 0:33:23.920 but probably focusing more here on just gleaning some of 0:33:23.920 --> 0:33:26.240 the sci fi references from it, because he does a 0:33:26.240 --> 0:33:29.280 great job about talking about, uh, the different types of 0:33:29.280 --> 0:33:31.880 time travel narratives that we have and what are some 0:33:31.920 --> 0:33:34.960 of the earlier examples of them. Uh, And he identifies 0:33:35.000 --> 0:33:39.120 a sort of related precursor to tales of ventures into 0:33:39.120 --> 0:33:41.680 the future um, as well as I guess into the 0:33:41.720 --> 0:33:45.720 past in the form of stories and accounts of visions 0:33:45.760 --> 0:33:51.040 of the future. So back before the Time Machine by H. 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:54.280 D Wells, you had as early as eighteen fifty six 0:33:54.760 --> 0:33:58.560 popular English language tales that's speculated on the far future, 0:33:58.880 --> 0:34:02.880 such as an eighteen fifty six Harper's article that pondered 0:34:02.920 --> 0:34:05.320 what the year three thousand would be like. It was 0:34:05.400 --> 0:34:09.160 titled January one a d three thousand, and it was 0:34:09.440 --> 0:34:12.120 apparently by an anonymous author, but I think it was 0:34:12.160 --> 0:34:17.279 at least edited by Alfred A. Gern Say, But I'm 0:34:17.280 --> 0:34:19.799 not not exactly sure if if an actual author has 0:34:19.800 --> 0:34:21.920 ever been attributed to this piece, or if it remains 0:34:22.000 --> 0:34:27.239 just anonymous. I bet it was absolutely prophetic. I had 0:34:27.280 --> 0:34:30.759 to look it up. Harper's magazine still has it, and 0:34:30.760 --> 0:34:32.600 I think it's in their archives. So you have to 0:34:32.640 --> 0:34:35.000 be a subscriber that's probably the best way to see it. 0:34:35.080 --> 0:34:37.040 I think I was able to find an expert of 0:34:37.120 --> 0:34:40.480 it and google books. Uh, it seems pretty farcical, So 0:34:40.520 --> 0:34:44.239 don't expect anything to sci fi lots of pondering over 0:34:44.280 --> 0:34:46.560 what sorts of stupid things men of the far future 0:34:46.680 --> 0:34:50.400 will where there's some great illustrations from this um this 0:34:51.160 --> 0:34:55.440 article included them here for you, Joe. Everybody looks like 0:34:55.719 --> 0:35:01.000 uh like Scottish warrior dandies. Yes, and anyway, you know, 0:35:01.120 --> 0:35:05.000 I don't know, these aren't too far off the off 0:35:05.000 --> 0:35:07.560 the mark, I guess, you know, but you know, it 0:35:07.600 --> 0:35:10.200 concerns the very sorts of time travel social commentary you 0:35:10.280 --> 0:35:12.799 might expect today, like when a time traveler is a 0:35:12.880 --> 0:35:16.600 gas to learn that individual freedom has been um uh 0:35:16.680 --> 0:35:23.040 you know, has been um violated by state sanctioned diets 0:35:22.880 --> 0:35:25.600 as your burgers in the future, right, Yeah, it's it's 0:35:25.640 --> 0:35:27.560 that sort of thing, so, you know, which is not 0:35:27.600 --> 0:35:29.680 to say that you know that this art. You know, 0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:31.640 I don't mean to criticize this article because again, this 0:35:31.719 --> 0:35:33.480 is the sort of thing that still goes on today 0:35:33.800 --> 0:35:36.000 and as one can imagine, it can be done well 0:35:36.080 --> 0:35:39.480 and it can also be done you know crudely or ineffectually, 0:35:40.360 --> 0:35:45.680 but anyway, it is a noteworthy example. Now, weirdly, a 0:35:45.760 --> 0:35:52.359 major nineteenth century example of multidirectional time travel is by 0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:54.879 Charles Dickens. You wouldn't have expected him to be one 0:35:54.920 --> 0:35:57.920 of the pioneers in this area. But we have it 0:35:58.000 --> 0:36:00.480 in the form of a Christmas Carol, which, you know, 0:36:00.600 --> 0:36:03.520 great story. We often missed some of the finer social 0:36:03.560 --> 0:36:05.759 points of it, but it's a it's a story that 0:36:05.840 --> 0:36:10.239 has become a part of Western holiday traditions. Like it's 0:36:10.520 --> 0:36:12.520 it's a narrative we put up there almost with the 0:36:12.560 --> 0:36:15.800 you know, the tales of Santa Claus and the Baby Jesus. 0:36:16.560 --> 0:36:20.160 But it is essentially about time travel visions. You know, 0:36:20.200 --> 0:36:22.000 I guess you can. You can critique and say, well, 0:36:22.000 --> 0:36:24.759 it's happening within the context of a dream, and I 0:36:24.760 --> 0:36:27.760 don't know to what extent he's actually being visited by spirits, 0:36:27.800 --> 0:36:29.319 but I don't know. I always think of them as 0:36:29.360 --> 0:36:31.960 actual spirits. I think of these as actual visions that 0:36:32.000 --> 0:36:35.040 are brought to him by supernatural entities. Yeah sure, I 0:36:35.080 --> 0:36:38.160 mean it's fiction, you know. Yeah, the spirits are coming 0:36:38.160 --> 0:36:40.520 to him and uh yeah, he's he gets to see 0:36:40.560 --> 0:36:43.520 the past, the present, and the future. Yeah, I mean, yeah, 0:36:43.560 --> 0:36:44.920 I guess that's the great thing about the stories. You 0:36:44.960 --> 0:36:46.759 can think of it in different ways. It's like, to 0:36:46.840 --> 0:36:50.279 what extent is Scrooge just simply having this this night 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:54.120 of intense dreaming and and and reflection and pondering about 0:36:54.120 --> 0:36:56.719 the future. He's engaging in mental time travel, which of 0:36:56.760 --> 0:37:00.080 course is something that that that that humans have of 0:37:01.000 --> 0:37:04.440 in general, that allows us to form these simulations of 0:37:04.440 --> 0:37:08.200 the past that two varying degrees may be correct, uh, 0:37:08.200 --> 0:37:11.120 and then compare those two simulations of what the future 0:37:11.200 --> 0:37:14.760 might hold and and various simulations about how that future 0:37:14.920 --> 0:37:18.520 situation will affect us, how will respond, etcetera. So you 0:37:18.520 --> 0:37:19.960 can just say that, or you can go with the 0:37:19.960 --> 0:37:23.480 more fun idea that like actual beings from beyond the 0:37:23.520 --> 0:37:26.680 grave came and visited him and took him on journeys, 0:37:27.200 --> 0:37:29.839 you know, through the through through the past and the 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:32.839 president in the future. Right. And so while a lot 0:37:32.920 --> 0:37:36.920 of the modern sci fi time travel I think is 0:37:37.200 --> 0:37:40.040 clearly traceable back to two H. G. Wells and the 0:37:40.320 --> 0:37:43.279 stories he wrote in the eighteen nineties and mainly the 0:37:43.320 --> 0:37:47.400 novel The Time the Time Machine, and that right, this 0:37:47.440 --> 0:37:50.360 goes back significantly earlier. Christmas Carol came out in eighteen 0:37:50.440 --> 0:37:54.200 forty three. Yeah, now you have even earlier stories that 0:37:54.360 --> 0:37:57.239 get closer to um a whole trope or or about 0:37:57.280 --> 0:38:00.040 to discuss. There's a Bulgarian tale from eighteen twenty for 0:38:00.160 --> 0:38:03.560 about a Russian hero who swept overboard at sea and 0:38:03.600 --> 0:38:07.600 he becomes wrapped in an herb known as the uh 0:38:07.800 --> 0:38:10.640 is the root of life and UH and then he 0:38:10.680 --> 0:38:14.920 comes to in the year four. I love how some 0:38:15.000 --> 0:38:17.400 of many of these older time travel stories they just 0:38:17.640 --> 0:38:20.080 go for it. They just go like a thousand years 0:38:20.080 --> 0:38:22.719 into the future. Um, you don't seem like you don't 0:38:22.719 --> 0:38:24.880 see as much of that. And and I don't know 0:38:24.920 --> 0:38:26.520 many of the stories we were you know, we grow. 0:38:26.880 --> 0:38:29.560 I guess I fall back to the the pattern set 0:38:29.600 --> 0:38:31.680 by Back to the Future, Like what are you looking 0:38:31.719 --> 0:38:34.840 at your traveling into the time of your parents, or 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:37.759 you're traveling into the time of your children, which I 0:38:37.800 --> 0:38:39.879 think makes a lot of sense because that's a very 0:38:39.960 --> 0:38:44.000 human perspective, individual perspective level of time travel. That's the 0:38:44.320 --> 0:38:47.040 that's generally the spectrum that we're most concerned about, or 0:38:47.040 --> 0:38:48.600 should be I guess most concerned about it is like 0:38:48.600 --> 0:38:51.520 where do we come from and what sort of world 0:38:51.520 --> 0:38:55.040 are we leaving for our children. I wonder if the 0:38:55.160 --> 0:38:58.920 tendency for for time travel journeys to become more modest 0:38:58.960 --> 0:39:01.640 in scale, you know, going a hundred years into the 0:39:01.680 --> 0:39:05.400 future instead of a thousand. Uh, if that happens in 0:39:05.440 --> 0:39:10.280 the twentieth century, because of the increasing rate of cultural 0:39:10.320 --> 0:39:14.080 and technological change in the twentieth century, like people living 0:39:14.080 --> 0:39:16.000 in a time where things see it will seem at 0:39:16.080 --> 0:39:17.759 least and I don't know if there's an objective way 0:39:17.760 --> 0:39:19.920 to measure this, but seem at least to be changing 0:39:20.040 --> 0:39:23.120 faster than ever. Did they start to think like, I 0:39:23.160 --> 0:39:25.359 can't set this a thousand years in the future, because 0:39:25.400 --> 0:39:27.960 like nothing will even be recognizable. I've got to I've 0:39:28.000 --> 0:39:30.839 got to pull the pull the reins back a bit. Yeah, 0:39:31.000 --> 0:39:33.880 getting into the concept of future shock, right, the idea 0:39:33.920 --> 0:39:35.760 that it just seems like things are moving at such 0:39:36.080 --> 0:39:39.600 a terrific level, I can't possibly predict what it's going 0:39:39.640 --> 0:39:41.919 to be like in uh, you know, in just ten 0:39:42.040 --> 0:39:43.959 years now. One of the interesting things there is, of course, 0:39:43.960 --> 0:39:46.920 that the concept of future shock, that there could be 0:39:46.960 --> 0:39:50.640 almost this trauma and anxiety associated with the the rate 0:39:50.680 --> 0:39:53.799 of technological advancement. This didn't come about till nine. This 0:39:53.880 --> 0:39:59.360 was American futurist Alvin Toffler and his spouse Adelaide Uh. 0:39:59.400 --> 0:40:03.080 They formulated this concept. So I don't know, it would 0:40:03.080 --> 0:40:04.799 be interesting to look at the sci fi at sci 0:40:04.840 --> 0:40:08.440 fi from the nineteen seventies, was was it less less 0:40:08.560 --> 0:40:13.000 um likely to look at near future situations and more 0:40:13.080 --> 0:40:16.439 likely to gaze into the far future, you know, sort 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:20.000 of like the early earlier work of Frank Herbert looking 0:40:20.040 --> 0:40:22.680 into the far future Humanity and Dune. Because it seems 0:40:22.680 --> 0:40:24.560 like by the time we get into the nineteen eighties 0:40:24.760 --> 0:40:27.279 you have far more of a tendency with sci fi 0:40:27.360 --> 0:40:30.960 authors to look into an immediate future. But I could 0:40:30.960 --> 0:40:33.400 be way off off the path there. I'm just probably 0:40:33.960 --> 0:40:36.719 cherry picking thinking about various works from different decades that 0:40:36.800 --> 0:40:45.600 I'm familiar with than than well. We we teased earlier 0:40:45.640 --> 0:40:49.560 the question of how far back in history the concept 0:40:49.560 --> 0:40:52.120 of time travel actually goes. It's clear again that a 0:40:52.120 --> 0:40:55.840 lot of modern time travel, I think is largely traceable 0:40:55.840 --> 0:40:57.839 back to H. G. Wells and the time machine. Again 0:40:57.840 --> 0:41:01.239 that's the eighteen nineties, but they're our ideas of time 0:41:01.280 --> 0:41:04.319 travel from before that. Like we've been discussing how far 0:41:04.520 --> 0:41:07.640 before that? So I was looking around for evidence of 0:41:07.680 --> 0:41:12.120 the oldest stories of time travel and literature, and I 0:41:12.200 --> 0:41:16.400 came across an interesting claim from a professor, actually a 0:41:16.400 --> 0:41:21.000 professor at Georgia Tech named Lisa Yazik, who is a 0:41:21.000 --> 0:41:24.719 professor of science fiction studies. So I was watching a 0:41:24.800 --> 0:41:28.960 video lecture that she did in about She actually wrote 0:41:29.040 --> 0:41:32.840 the preface or introduction to a recent new edition of 0:41:32.840 --> 0:41:36.399 of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, and she's 0:41:36.400 --> 0:41:39.640 done a lot of study about the history of time 0:41:39.640 --> 0:41:43.560 travel stories. Actually connected her also by a mention in 0:41:43.600 --> 0:41:46.640 that article by by Adam Man in Life Science. But 0:41:46.840 --> 0:41:50.640 Yasick actually has a lot of uh of interesting thoughts 0:41:50.640 --> 0:41:53.359 about time travel. She argues that it is not as 0:41:53.400 --> 0:41:57.280 modern a literary concept as we might assume, and in fact, 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:01.719 some forms of time travel are as old as literature itself. 0:42:02.160 --> 0:42:04.480 And so what would be the examples here, Well, she 0:42:04.640 --> 0:42:08.760 gives the example of the ancient Sanskrit epic the Mahabarata, 0:42:09.400 --> 0:42:12.719 which describes a form of time travel that yeas it 0:42:12.840 --> 0:42:16.400 calls time dilation. So this would be similar to the 0:42:16.719 --> 0:42:19.920 type of time travel that is quite real. A confirmed 0:42:19.960 --> 0:42:22.880 part of modern physics that we know from general relativity, 0:42:22.880 --> 0:42:25.520 where say, if you are um, if you are near 0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:28.440 an object of great mass, or if you are moving 0:42:28.480 --> 0:42:32.240 at great velocity, then relative to other objects in the universe, 0:42:32.520 --> 0:42:35.360 your experience of time will slow down. You will age 0:42:35.400 --> 0:42:37.759 more slowly as as time sort of zips by in 0:42:37.760 --> 0:42:41.040 the broader context. But this story is not about physics. 0:42:41.080 --> 0:42:44.000 So this story in the Mahabarta probably dates back to 0:42:44.120 --> 0:42:47.520 sometime in the first millennium b c. E UH and 0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:50.480 it is the story of a king named Rivada who 0:42:50.560 --> 0:42:55.640 is also known as Kakudman and his daughter Ravati. Actually 0:42:55.680 --> 0:42:57.600 found a good text of the story, though, it is 0:42:57.640 --> 0:43:00.560 the version that's told not in the mahabar Rita but 0:43:00.680 --> 0:43:04.160 in the Vishnu Puranha. And so this version is from 0:43:04.160 --> 0:43:07.040 the Vishnu Puranha, and it's translated into English in the 0:43:07.120 --> 0:43:11.200 nineteenth century by Horace Hayman Wilson. So the story begins 0:43:11.320 --> 0:43:14.279 with this king Ravada, who is the eldest of a 0:43:14.360 --> 0:43:20.160 hundred brethren. And King Ravada has a surpassingly wonderful daughter 0:43:20.280 --> 0:43:24.279 named Ravati, and she is just awesome and lovely in 0:43:24.360 --> 0:43:28.359 every possible way. She's like the best princess. Ever, and 0:43:28.440 --> 0:43:32.839 in fact, Ravati is so great that Ravada doesn't know 0:43:33.000 --> 0:43:35.560 if there are really any men around who are worthy 0:43:35.600 --> 0:43:38.920 of her hand in marriage. So he gets an idea. 0:43:39.360 --> 0:43:42.440 He is going to consult the heavens. He will travel 0:43:42.920 --> 0:43:45.920 to the Brahma realm, the plane of existence where the 0:43:45.920 --> 0:43:49.480 god Brahma dwells, and he will consult with the great God. 0:43:49.560 --> 0:43:52.480 He will get the advice of Brahma, because if anybody 0:43:52.520 --> 0:43:55.200 should be able to find him a suitable match for Ravati, 0:43:55.280 --> 0:43:58.359 it should be Brahma. But when the two of them 0:43:58.400 --> 0:44:01.160 get there, Brahma is in the middle of listening to 0:44:01.200 --> 0:44:04.920 a concert. They're they're a group of of divine singers 0:44:04.960 --> 0:44:07.839 who are who are going through a song. And so 0:44:08.080 --> 0:44:11.319 Ravada and Ravati sit and wait patiently for the song 0:44:11.400 --> 0:44:13.640 to finish. And here I'm going to quote from the 0:44:13.640 --> 0:44:17.600 Wilson translation. At the end of their singing, Ravada prostrated 0:44:17.680 --> 0:44:21.840 himself before Brahma and explained his Errand whom should you 0:44:21.880 --> 0:44:24.520 wish for a son in law? Demanded Brahma, And the 0:44:24.640 --> 0:44:27.200 king mentioned to him various persons with whom he could 0:44:27.280 --> 0:44:31.480 be well pleased, nodding his head gently and graciously smiling, 0:44:31.760 --> 0:44:34.400 Brahma said to him, of those whom you have named 0:44:34.480 --> 0:44:39.359 the third or fourth generation no longer survives, for many 0:44:39.440 --> 0:44:43.200 successions of ages have passed away whilst you were listening 0:44:43.239 --> 0:44:48.360 to our songsters. Now upon Earth they great age of 0:44:48.440 --> 0:44:52.080 the present Manu is nearly finished, and the Collie period 0:44:52.200 --> 0:44:55.640 is at hand. You must therefore bestow this virgin gym 0:44:55.760 --> 0:44:59.319 upon some other husband, for you are now alone, and 0:44:59.360 --> 0:45:03.960 your friend is your minister's servants. Wife, kinsman, armies, and 0:45:04.040 --> 0:45:07.400 treasures have long since been swept away by the hand 0:45:07.440 --> 0:45:12.160 of time. So the issue here is that time flows 0:45:12.200 --> 0:45:14.960 at a different rate on Earth than it does in 0:45:14.960 --> 0:45:18.359 the Brahma realm. It's as if the Brahma realm were 0:45:18.400 --> 0:45:22.200 like near a supermassive black hole. So while the two 0:45:22.239 --> 0:45:25.719 mortals were sitting here listening to this song, presumably the 0:45:25.760 --> 0:45:28.880 songs only a few minutes long, millions of years have 0:45:29.000 --> 0:45:32.120 passed on Earth, and everybody they ever knew or knew 0:45:32.200 --> 0:45:38.040 of is dead. Fortunately, there are some immortal God still around, 0:45:38.120 --> 0:45:40.800 and so there is a semi happy ending for Ravati 0:45:41.120 --> 0:45:44.360 because at the end she gets to she gets paired 0:45:44.440 --> 0:45:46.800 up with one of the avatars of the god Vishnu, 0:45:47.000 --> 0:45:49.960 who is quite worthy of her hand in marriage, of course, 0:45:50.000 --> 0:45:52.799 because he's Vishnu. And then there's a long section of 0:45:52.840 --> 0:45:56.359 the story in the Vishnu Puranha version that is just 0:45:56.560 --> 0:46:00.480 a monologue on the nature of Vishnu, who interestingly is 0:46:00.600 --> 0:46:05.040 in places described sort of like a manifestation of time itself. 0:46:05.120 --> 0:46:07.080 So I just want to read some some parts of 0:46:07.120 --> 0:46:10.799 this monologue, not the whole thing. Quote the being of 0:46:10.840 --> 0:46:15.400 whose commencement, course, and termination we are ignorant, the unborn 0:46:15.480 --> 0:46:18.799 in omnipresent essence of all things. He who is real 0:46:18.880 --> 0:46:21.799 and infinite nature and essence we do not know, is 0:46:21.880 --> 0:46:26.680 the supreme Vishnu. He is time, made up of moments 0:46:26.719 --> 0:46:30.239 and hours and years, whose influence is the source of 0:46:30.280 --> 0:46:34.440 perpetual change. He is the universal form of all things, 0:46:34.480 --> 0:46:38.320 from birth to death. He is eternal, without name or shape. 0:46:38.800 --> 0:46:41.440 And then, skipping ahead of it, he is at once 0:46:41.520 --> 0:46:45.319 the creator and that which is created the preserver, and 0:46:45.400 --> 0:46:49.200 that which is preserved the destroyer, and as one with 0:46:49.239 --> 0:46:53.640 all things, that which is destroyed, and as the indestructible. 0:46:53.880 --> 0:46:57.560 He is distinct from these three vicissitudes. In him is 0:46:57.600 --> 0:47:01.080 the world. He is the world, and he the primeval 0:47:01.160 --> 0:47:05.160 self born is again present in the world. Wow. Yeah, 0:47:05.160 --> 0:47:11.000 that that reminds me of some translations of of the Geta. 0:47:11.239 --> 0:47:15.160 They they they translate the words of Vishnu as as 0:47:15.200 --> 0:47:19.719 I am time grown old, which I like that. That yeah, 0:47:19.760 --> 0:47:22.480 that gives me chills. Now there's another interesting thing that 0:47:22.480 --> 0:47:25.440 gets mentioned in this story, which is that, though there 0:47:25.520 --> 0:47:29.080 are some very important differences between this myth and the 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:32.799 dystopian sci fi stories of the modern era, Rivada and 0:47:32.880 --> 0:47:36.160 Ravati do return to a future Earth that could be 0:47:36.360 --> 0:47:39.799 called dystopian, or at least worse off than the one 0:47:39.880 --> 0:47:42.279 they left. I don't know if this has to do 0:47:42.360 --> 0:47:44.799 It might have to do with um what Brahma says 0:47:44.840 --> 0:47:47.520 about the Earth being on the verge of the Collie Age. 0:47:48.360 --> 0:47:51.480 But we are told quote being thus instructed by the 0:47:51.520 --> 0:47:55.200 lotus born divinity. Rivada returned with his daughter to Earth, 0:47:55.520 --> 0:47:58.520 where he found the race of men dwindled in stature, 0:47:58.719 --> 0:48:03.160 reduced in vigor, enfeebled in intellect. So they come back 0:48:03.239 --> 0:48:05.799 and people are like worse than when they left. Think 0:48:05.920 --> 0:48:09.840 things have gone downhill. And uh so, I want to 0:48:09.840 --> 0:48:13.480 be clear that the kind of dystopian future described by H. G. 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:18.279 Wells and the Time Machine is I believe, understood as 0:48:18.320 --> 0:48:23.600 a contingent consequence of bad social and political trends within 0:48:23.719 --> 0:48:26.840 linear time. So I think the important point that Wells 0:48:26.960 --> 0:48:29.960 is trying to make is that if we say, continue 0:48:30.000 --> 0:48:33.719 tolerating a society in which the rich relentlessly exploit the 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:36.400 labor of the poor, here's what you're gonna get. You know, 0:48:36.440 --> 0:48:40.000 you're gonna get eloi and more locks. Um. I don't 0:48:40.120 --> 0:48:43.520 get that kind of implication in this ancient Indian epic. 0:48:44.160 --> 0:48:45.919 It would be good to hear from listeners with more 0:48:45.960 --> 0:48:49.400 knowledge about ancient Hindu thought. But I think this story 0:48:49.440 --> 0:48:54.120 about Ravata and Ravati is more consistent with a vision 0:48:54.160 --> 0:48:56.839 of a kind of cyclical mythic time in which there 0:48:56.840 --> 0:48:59.759 there are ages of human advancement and than ages of 0:49:00.160 --> 0:49:03.360 and retreat, and it's just that they happen to pop 0:49:03.360 --> 0:49:06.960 out of the Brahma realm in one of the bad times. Yeah, 0:49:06.960 --> 0:49:09.279 that's that's my understanding as well. And of course, this 0:49:09.440 --> 0:49:12.880 this view of time matches matches up very very loosely 0:49:12.920 --> 0:49:15.839 with with some of the ideas you see in um 0:49:16.280 --> 0:49:20.320 uh in various Native American tribal cultures and in Mesoamerican 0:49:20.360 --> 0:49:24.120 cultures where it's a procession of different ages and catastrophes, 0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:27.399 and we find ourselves and yet another age, and there 0:49:27.440 --> 0:49:29.920 will be another catastrophe, but then there will be another 0:49:29.960 --> 0:49:32.920 age beyond that. Now, of course, this raises the question 0:49:33.040 --> 0:49:35.360 people always want to like pick at logical issues in 0:49:35.400 --> 0:49:38.120 time travel stories, and and this story has mythic logic, 0:49:38.200 --> 0:49:39.840 so it's pointless to try to pick at it. But 0:49:39.920 --> 0:49:42.439 I couldn't help but think, why didn't they just wait 0:49:42.440 --> 0:49:44.760 a few more minutes with Brahma and maybe like listen 0:49:44.800 --> 0:49:46.719 to another song, and then they could pop out at 0:49:46.719 --> 0:49:49.319 a better time on Earth. I don't know. Now. I 0:49:49.400 --> 0:49:52.879 love the idea that it involves um listening to music though, 0:49:53.280 --> 0:49:55.080 because yeah, I gets into this, like, because what happens 0:49:55.080 --> 0:49:57.239 when we listen to listen to music? You know, that's 0:49:57.280 --> 0:49:59.960 just one of the many human experiences that can all 0:50:00.080 --> 0:50:02.560 to our perception of time. You know, you get lost 0:50:02.560 --> 0:50:04.920 in a good song, and I don't know, sometimes that 0:50:04.960 --> 0:50:07.200 good song doesn't seem to last long enough. You've gotta 0:50:07.200 --> 0:50:09.880 put it on repeat and listen to it about six times, um. 0:50:10.000 --> 0:50:12.440 And in other cases, you know, you it seems to 0:50:12.440 --> 0:50:15.160 stretch on for a very long time, and you lose 0:50:15.200 --> 0:50:18.560 yourself in it um. And curiously enough, this pops up 0:50:18.600 --> 0:50:22.080 in another uh tale. This is a Japanese fairy tale 0:50:22.960 --> 0:50:27.399 of Urashima Taro uh. This tale about a fisherman who 0:50:27.400 --> 0:50:30.480 rescues a turtle and returns it to the dragon palace 0:50:30.520 --> 0:50:34.600 beneath the sea. While he's there returning said turtle, he's 0:50:34.719 --> 0:50:38.520 entertained by the princess there as a reward, and you know, 0:50:38.760 --> 0:50:41.480 there's music and dancing. It's great uh uh. And then 0:50:41.520 --> 0:50:44.080 he's sent home with a box that he's forbidden to open. 0:50:44.360 --> 0:50:47.040 And when he returns to his home village, he finds 0:50:47.080 --> 0:50:50.400 that a hundred years has passed. And when he opens 0:50:50.440 --> 0:50:53.200 the box that again he was forbidden to open, he 0:50:53.239 --> 0:50:58.680 immediately ages an entire century. Oh no, don't open the box, dude. Yeah. 0:50:58.760 --> 0:51:01.960 I mean, if if God's and goddesses and strange ladies 0:51:02.000 --> 0:51:03.960 under the ocean tell you not to open the box, 0:51:04.320 --> 0:51:07.239 don't open that box. You know what, We're in the 0:51:07.280 --> 0:51:09.400 odd situation where I think we need to call this 0:51:09.440 --> 0:51:12.520 episode right here. But there's a lot more we want 0:51:12.520 --> 0:51:15.480 to say about the history of of thinking about time travel. 0:51:15.560 --> 0:51:18.880 And so what I'm proposing is that on this subject 0:51:19.040 --> 0:51:22.279 we sleep into the future. I don't think we're quite 0:51:22.320 --> 0:51:24.360 ready for the next episode of the show to be 0:51:24.440 --> 0:51:26.239 part two of this, so maybe this will be an 0:51:26.360 --> 0:51:29.400 open part one and who knows when the hands of 0:51:29.440 --> 0:51:32.719 time will reach out and feed you the second entry. Yeah, 0:51:32.840 --> 0:51:37.960 just don't open any strange boxes in the meantime, all right, well, yes, 0:51:38.040 --> 0:51:41.239 definitely look out for that the next episode. Uh, we 0:51:41.280 --> 0:51:42.839 have some we may have. I think we are gonna 0:51:42.840 --> 0:51:45.000 have some other episodes that have to occur before then, 0:51:45.080 --> 0:51:47.040 but we will be back to discuss this topic more 0:51:47.480 --> 0:51:49.040 in the meantime. If you would like to check out 0:51:49.040 --> 0:51:51.120 other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, well you 0:51:51.160 --> 0:51:54.759 can find all of them trailing back through time in 0:51:54.800 --> 0:51:57.440 the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. You can 0:51:57.440 --> 0:52:00.040 get that wherever you get your podcasts. Uh. We we 0:52:00.360 --> 0:52:03.480 have our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays listener Mail. 0:52:03.520 --> 0:52:07.200 On Mondays, we do a short form artifact on Wednesdays. 0:52:07.239 --> 0:52:09.920 On Friday, we do a little something called Weird House Cinema. 0:52:09.960 --> 0:52:12.880 That's when we set most serious concerns aside and we 0:52:12.960 --> 0:52:16.120 just talk about some sort of strange film. And we 0:52:16.200 --> 0:52:19.600 have discussed time travel films, and not only time after time, 0:52:19.640 --> 0:52:24.080 but uh, Oh, what else did we get into? Um transfers, 0:52:24.160 --> 0:52:27.440 transfers to the Hell of the time travel movie, The 0:52:27.480 --> 0:52:29.920 Return of Jack Dad. Yes, tell you it's right. We 0:52:29.960 --> 0:52:33.600 did what we did Transers too. Oh and then on 0:52:33.640 --> 0:52:35.560 the weekends we do a vault episode that's a rerun 0:52:35.600 --> 0:52:38.080 from the previous year Huge Things. As always to our 0:52:38.120 --> 0:52:41.120 excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like 0:52:41.160 --> 0:52:43.040 to get in touch with us with feedback on this 0:52:43.120 --> 0:52:45.680 episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, 0:52:46.080 --> 0:52:48.040 or just to say hello, you can email us at 0:52:48.160 --> 0:52:58.560 contact at stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com Stuff 0:52:58.560 --> 0:53:01.160 to Blow Your Mind. It's production I Heart Radio. For 0:53:01.280 --> 0:53:03.440 more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart 0:53:03.520 --> 0:53:06.239 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your 0:53:06.280 --> 0:53:18.120 favorite shows.