Time manipulation, alter-vús, etc.

[Palehorse]

Hm, a few minutes after I posted that, I was reading some related material, some of which made mention of the book "A Wrinkle in Time."  Right then, I got a spam IM from a screenname that was something like "CharlesMeg."  For those who don't know, Charles and Meg are two of the main characters in that book.  Spookiness.  Heh.

[Voltarrens]

Time and travelling through it have always fasinated myself over the years since I was very little.  Through my own experinces I've found that it is by far not linear nor just flexable in the appearance of the length of time nor does it seem to have a begining or end.

Mmm, I can only put this here as personal experiences . . . .

It is possible to "skip" between time lines, paralells of events, life, being . . . proving it is harder, very hard because you've already moved once it's done, something only to be experienced.  There have been times when I've seen glitches.  They are small. Suddenly something like a very common use word looks wrong, you're quite sure it's spelt another way, but you can't find that other spelling and it fades as you move onward in travel.

There have been instances of moving forward to a point in time projected over the top of a point in time now.  I'd once seen a butterfly dart past, little chestnut coloured one which doesn't exist where I live, yet when I travelled overseas months later I saw that same butterfly dart across my path.

How and why these things happen around myself I have not found the reason for . . . yet.  All I can say is that time is not a straight line, nor is it that we only live in one usiverse seperated from the others. . . and it appears and is becoming more apparent that it is connected to a complex of other things that happen around and to myself which defy normal explaination.

Yes, no road map, seem to have always been this way

[Palehorse]

quote:It is possible to "skip" between time lines, paralells of events, life, being . . . proving it is harder, very hard because you've already moved once it's done, something only to be experienced. There have been times when I've seen glitches. They are small. Suddenly something like a very common use word looks wrong, you're quite sure it's spelt another way, but you can't find that other spelling and it fades as you move onward in travel.

See, that's just it... it's so maddeningly fleeting, isn't it?  We're given the occasional rare glimpse behind the veil of this crazy thing called reality... but only just enough to know *something* is there, and that's if we're not too busy questioning our own sanity by that point.  I have a strong hunch that we're all endowed with the innate ability to blow that veil wide open... but how?  That's the million dollar question, but it seems that if anyone has the answers, whoever does isn't talking.  At least not to me.  And as much as I try to remain patient and persistent... I might as well admit that this frustrates me to no end.

[oman34mi]

Even though i think it may be possible, I still have to wonder, if one could alter time how would we get on with our lives?  Wouldn't time cease to exist, and therefore us?  Example: a baseball player misses a homerun so he goes back in time to correct that problem. A player from the other team then goes back in time to stop the home run and so on. How would that work?
Cole Turner (Charmed) altering reality.

[Palehorse]

Eh, there are a few ways to solve those kinds of problems depending on what view you take of time's nature.

One, baseball player A could travel to an alternate timeline where the homerun happened, while player B traveled to one where it didn't.  

Then... even if both of them did manage to time travel, there's the issue of being able to exert control over the flight of a baseball, which could prove even trickier, lol.  If you didn't manage to hit a homerun the first time around, what makes you think you're going to be able to after one, two, three more tries?  

The moral of the story, I think, is that just because you can hypothetically travel through time, you still have a degree of indeterminancy, and of course free will, to deal with no matter what timeline you're in.  I personally don't think it would be advisable, maybe not even possible, to interfere with either of those.

[Krevency]

There are two ways you can deal with active time travel, or changing things in the past.

1) is that you can go back in time, change something, and it will have some unpredictable effect on the present.  This was illustrated in the movie, "It's a Wonerful Life," (I think that was the name) and badly demonstrated in the crappy movie, "The Butterfly Effect."

I don't buy that version.

What I think is more believable is...

2) that you go back in time, do whatever, and whatever you did causes the present to happen exactly as it did.  The unity of time makes this even more feasible.  What about the grandfather paradox?  Steven Hawking & friends hypothesize (and I agree) that there would be a universal force, not unlike gravity or electromagnetics, that would cause events to unfold that you would be, for whatever reason, unable to kill your grandfather.

Basically, I think that you can't go back to the past and change the present, and if you do go back to the past, that action is what made the present what is has been all along.  It makes sense to me.

[Wells]

This is an interesting topic, although I can't really contribute any experiences.

All I can say is that I'm afraid most people now agree that John Titor was a hoax.  There are loads of links if you just search for 'John Titor Hoax' on google.

[Palehorse]

Lately, particularly after reading a lot of the John Titor story[1] and surrounding events, as well as a thread on "alter-vús"[2]  I've become increasingly interested in time travel and related subjects, though really, I always have been.

For one, I've had what might be a few alter-vús myself, as well as a decidedly bizarre experience in my childhood, and another about two years ago.  I may or may not elaborate more on that if this thread goes anywhere.

Then... I'm very much intrigued by what seems to be a popular theory of time here; i.e. that what we define as "past, present and future" are illusions, there is only the eternal "now," and all moments in time exist simultaneously, but in parallel universes, dimensions, whatever.

Add into this accounts from people like Robert Monroe, who have APed to find themselves living in someone else's body, someone else's life, only to snap back to being Robert Monroe on planet earth shortly after.  Also, experiences from both Monroe and Bruce, of having some bizarre experience, only to find out later that it was directly caused by their future selves.

My point in all this -- I'm wondering if it would be possible to use these concepts to actually alter your own past in some way, while keeping your current set of memories and experience in place.  The first option would be to send some sort of message to yourself in the past to cause your past self to alter his course, which might alter the circumstances in which you find yourself in your percieved present.  

Your second hypothetical option would be to actually project your consciousness back into your past and reposess the life of your past self, but with the added life experience you didn't have at that time, allowing you to make different (hopefully wiser) choices.  So, once you make it back to the time you left, hopefully your circumstances have significantly improved through your own volition.

So, what are all of your thoughts?  Is this possible?  Advisable?  How do you believe one would go about achieving this?  If you didn't actually travel back to your own past, but rather a carbon copy of yourself living in a parallel universe, what would be the implications of taking over that life?  Could it be done? Would you be considered a "walk-in"?  Would this be unethical, as if stealing someone else's body, or would you have a rightful claim upon it?  What would happen to the life you left?  Would a walk-in who wasn't you step in to posess your body and life?

I'm particularly interested in hearing any of your experiences which could be considered evidence toward figuring out exactly how this system operates.  My intentions with this post are basically to get intelligent and gifted minds (which I think are in no short supply here) playing with these questions based on our current knowledge and experience, to see what we can come up with.  No, I'm not expecting someone to show up with a "time travel manual" (though hell, if someone has one, I'd probably be willing to try anything once.  Hehe)  And yes, my not-so-well disguised ulterior motive is to see what can be done about altering certain circumstances in which I currently find myself, while learning about reality itself.  So... discuss!


[1]  If you haven't heard of him, John Titor is an alleged time traveler from an alternate timeline in the year 2036 who posted in a web forum for a while during, I think, 2001.  There's a whole lot more drama, details and a sizable cult following involved with this story, but I'll leave that for you to Google.

[2]  An "alter-vú" is a convenient term given on this thread I've been reading: ( http://www.anomalies.net/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=9;t=001280;p= ), to the experience of having memories that don't correspond with your reality.  Example: you walk down a street and notice that there's a large building where there wasn't one yesterday, and everyone you ask remembers it as having "always been there."