10-21-2015: The Future and Time Travel

As a science fiction author, how can I help but love 10-21-2015? The future date they traveled to in "Back to the Future." Others have spent time looking at its predictions and the reality of our day. Most notably ... while the Cubs may or may not win the World Series as predicted in the second movie (they haven't won since 1908), they incredibly DID win their pennant for the first time in 70 years. So, a pretty amazing prediction no matter what.

Meanwhile, plenty of others have gotten in on the fun of the day, as Ford did by promoting its new upgrade (only on the Focus and Fiesta for some reason): the Flux Capacitor. Giving new meaning to its tagline, "Go Further."
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But more than this, it seems like a good day to talk about time travel. I remember the early days of the internet when people were talking about someone who appeared in several forums for a time claiming to have been from the future and answering people's questions about time travel (I don't remember details). Eventually he just disappeared from the forums, which just added to the mystery. And of course this is one of those topics you can just sort of laugh about it you don't think time travel is possible, but unless you capture someone in a factual lie (or what appears to be a factual lie on our timeline), there's no proving either side of the argument.

Which brings you to people like Andrew Basiago who has been on numerous shows including the Art Bell show and Jimmy Church's Fade to Black, claiming to have been in a government time travel program and later a Mars jumping program. He goes into great detail about both, even saying that Barack Obama was a fellow Mars jumper. He was also told that he (Andrew) would one day be president. We'll see if it's true on our timeline or not.

As a fun twist with his story, he provides a photo of the Civil War with a child that he claims is him, and that might be wearing unusual shoes for the time.

He also claims to have visited George Washington with instructions from our modern government about an action he needed to take to avoid being beaten by the British at a turning point in the war. Washington then inexplicably (to modern history) took that action. In other words, Basiago says no one knows today why he did it, and Basiago claims to be the reason. Though as a child, he was just giving the information he was instructed to give.

Take that as you will, what I find interesting is the time travel dilemma. On our timeline, Basiago could not have been told by our current government to instruct Washington on the strategy that would lead to victory. If Washington didn't originally have the instruction and that meant he lost the war, we'd have never had today's government to send Basiago back to Washington to give him those instructions. I know, a time travel paradox, right? But if it could happen because theoretically everything is happening at the same time, I admit I can't get my mind around it. I can play with the idea and could write about it with the freedom of a paradox apparently meaning anything can happen. But I can't get my mind about it as a reality.

On the other hand, I could grasp something like the idea of multiple timelines, and potentially that our collective consciousness can only ever be aware of one timeline. So for instance, we lost the Revolutionary War; some time later we discovered time travel; we decided it would have been better if the Colonies had won; and that government (whoever you want to call it) decided to send a time traveler back to see General Washington with instructions. That government wouldn't be the government we're conscious of today in the United States. It wouldn't have even been the United States.

Now let's say Washington takes those instructions because of a time traveler and wins the war. Then we might enter onto the timeline we're all conscious of today and consciousness completely forgets about the government that actually sent Basiago back in time. Basiago, however, knows he traveled back with instructions for Washington and was sent by the government. Our current government is the only one his brain can work with, so it creates this as the reality he was sent from, and in this way the apparent paradox makes sense. Fixed by multiple realities where we can only be aware of one.

On maybe a more solidly grounded topic -- or at least an easier possibility for many people to accept -- there was another interesting Coast to Coast show involving time experiments, but not time travel. Rather, about a technology that creates a small area where time can be distorted, which I think means you could for instance grow organs more quickly or whatever. And if this tech is really happening, then the show's description suggests that we'll not only come up against ethics questions, but into an era of time wars. What's new? Another war.

There's probably more recent information on this that I haven't dug up, so please drop a note here if you have links to resources about time technologies, or thoughts on time dilemmas, Mars jumping, or anything else from this post!