Hi. I have just been having fun going thru this time travel thread, which included a post by me which I had utterly forgotten!
Anyway, on the subject of time travel, I came across this short item on Youtube a couple of days ago:
Introductory text from the YouTube page ...
This is my story. It all happened on the afternoon the 30th of August. It was a beutiful day and I was on my way home from a job in Färjestaden. When I got home, I found water on the kitchen floor. Somehow there was a leak. I got my tools and opened up the doors to the sink. And started to work. When I reached in to examine the pipes, they seemed to be futher in than I remembered. I had to crawl inside the cabinet, and as I did so, I discovered that it just continued. So I kept on crawling further and further into the cabinet. In the end of the tunnel I saw a light, and when I got there, I realized I was in the future. I meet myself as 72 years old, the year was 2042. ...
Do I believe this? To be honest, no. But I did find it strangely moving. I thought it might have been posted up somewhere on this site, but I could not find it anywhere, so my apologies if it has been discussed elsewhere.
I have heard that this was merely an advert for a Swedish pension company, and maybe they did use it, but apparently the guy stands by his story. This does not make it factually true, of course.
I had the following thoughts:
(i) The fact that he experienced this by crawling into the cupboard under the sink, in my most humble opinion, makes it slightly
more likely to be true, not less, because it's not the kind of thing you'd make up. I mean, if I had to make up such a story, I would probably say I saw a UFO, and it emitted a beam which enveloped me, and then I met an older version of myself etc etc. (no such thing has ever happened to me).
(ii) Supposing for the
sake of argument that it's true, how did he get back from the future? Crawl back into the wormhole, if it was one, and back out the cupboard under the sink? He doesn't say.
(iii) Supposing, the day after this event, he had gone into town and had another tattoo on his arm, next to the "knife" one, and then played the film again - would the film show the second tattoo or not? In theory it ought to, because if he had another tattoo, he would have it in the future - but this is very much a murdering-your-grandmother-type argument, already much-discussed on this thread.
(iv) This kind of thing does go to the very heart of the "linear time" argument, and whether linear time is actually an illusion. This is a very old debate, I know that. But, I mean, supposing that our "now" is just one of an infinite number of "now"s? What does "now" actually mean? Maybe dinosaurs are eating each other
now, and the Titanic is sinking
now, and Armstrong is walking on the Moon
now, and all other events are happening now. If so, we ought to take heed, because instead of today's events being a "here today, gone tomorrow" thing, maybe we are like needleworkers, embroidering events into the very fabric of eternity. if so, we ought to be even more careful to embroider beautiful pictures rather than ugly ones.
Anyway, like I say, I do not specifically believe that guy, but I thought that the short video was very interesting.
Best wishes to all on the board.
Bill Robinson
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