Historical Time Travelers?

I was watching something on History Channel lately about William Shakespeare. It was kind of a conspiracy show; they were talking about authors who lived at that time who seemed likely to have been responsible for writing his works. They made the case that his background made it extremely unlikely that he was this prolific author.
That put me in mind of a conversation I had with a friend several years ago. We were talking about Ben Franklin, and this friend said, "You know, it would not surprise me at all if it turned out that Ben Franklin was a time traveler from the future. I feel the same way about Leonardo DaVinci."
I thought about that for a few seconds and nodded. "You could throw Archimedes onto that list for me," I replied.
Now I find myself thinking that maybe Shakespeare is another one of those guys. Or maybe Shakespeare ran into a time-traveling Lit major who had a copy of his Complete Works and rolled that guy...
Are there any other historical figures you can think of who belong on that list? "Historical people that would surprise no one if it turned out they were time travelers from the future?"

Heinlein suggested in The Door Into Summer that a modern Colorado student named Leo Vincent was an inadvertent time-traveler who made it to Italy and became Leonardo. I doubt the survivability of a modern person in the past because we lack needed skills and because past medicine sucked.

Having said that, I'll nominate Tycho Brahe, who invented science.

Hypoxia said:

Heinlein suggested in The Door Into Summer that a modern Colorado student named Leo Vincent was an inadvertent time-traveler who made it to Italy and became Leonardo. I doubt the survivability of a modern person in the past because we lack needed skills and because past medicine sucked.

Having said that, I'll nominate Tycho Brahe, who invented science.

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Depends. I haven't read that particular Heinlein, but if the guy was vaccinated and was an engineering major, he could possibly have pulled it off.

Granted, he would also have needed to know Italian and be able to draw, but if we're going down the rabbit hole of time travel . . .

I have on many occasions offered to show conclusive evidence of this matter - and I have in the past made the 'offer' to clowns like Randi and even Dawkins, btw; and my only stipulation was for the purposes of obtaining adequate media coverage: I proposed the loud-mouthed clowns stick a million bucks into the firm of recognized international public accountants of their choice, pending the WIDE ACCEPTANCE of my proof.

And no one has ever taken up the offer.

Have there been people who went backwards and forwards in time?

Absolutely.

I agree Brahe is an unusual character worth further considering about this aspect...

This is not the place to go full throttle on what I could muster as far as hard proof and evidence, but for the sake of the original question, and in context of the probably rather modest finances of our members here, and also their specific area of interest - Lewis Carroll would be a candidate for a decent FBI probe on this, put it that way, Virginia Woolf more or less said vicariously as the author's voice that she could or had or did, via her extravaganza 'Orlando,' and it would not take a solid reader with some intelligence and wider general knowledge very long reading much of Howard Phillips Lovecraft to realize that he had access to knowledge that was 'dubious' as far as its chronological position is concerned.

But over all I don't think that time travel is done often or by many - but it is done.

And my own private view is that it is possible that this infamous 'Chateau des Amerois' is a site for time travel by key individuals in European aristocracy - but might not have had that role for maybe a hundred years now. ...Although it may again. Not that I claim to have any special knowledge of the future in this regard.

Another personal view I hold - and that is shared (in the sense of having an open mind about it and proposing its possibility) by some notable high-brow society journalists - is that Jacob Astor (who 'died' or disappeared from the Titanic) was/is a time traveler.

Now I'd note, nothing that I have just said I class as, or consider anything even close to 'hard evidence' or leading to such a thing - they are just instances of people and events that strike me as having the hallmarks of people who time traveled for certain reasons.

It just comes to my memory as well now, that I am thinking about it, that there are small sects all over South Asia and India who regard 'Jimi Hendrix' as an avatar of 'Naruda Muni,' a Vedic guru who 'became one with music and also time...'

And, this leads me to something that is quite obvious to me from part of my RL, namely that there are several musicians today and producers and these 'big room trance DJs' who will tell you openly that they ARE time travelers but they're not really joking when they say it.

Paul van Dyk has had a history of some 'prescience' as far as future events goes, and well, he does it all the time; every one of his major album works has tied in with events that happened but that no one could really have known WOULD happen. He's on record somewhere in a German language interview talking about some 'intergalactic mother-ship on its way from Vega in the Lyra system' and because van Dyk is very intellectual and well-spoken and 'artsy' you can see the interviewer being polite and doing their best to refrain from 'eye-rolling.'

Well that was a good clear um, maybe fifteen years prior to this 'Oumuamua' thing turning up in our Solar System, as far as the scientists think - from Vega in the Lyra system.

Actually, if you watch the History Channel, on Fridays, you'll learn Leonardo DaVinci was schooled by ancient aliens. There supposedly is a gap in his known location on the planet of a couple of years before he started to sketch the things he has been credited. Some believe he was taken off planet via worm hole back to the aliens home world where he was shone the wonders he attempted sketch and build when they returned him.

But like anything else about the past, it's just a theory. Until we actually do perfect time travel the past will not be known for sure.

Thought experiment time.

Let’s say that time travel is indeed possible.

It would seem likely, perhaps almost certain, that its secret would be held by governments or at least one government.

Let’s assume that it would be Washington.

So why has the world gone so sour since, say, the year 2000 for the USA? Its economy took a massive kick following 9/11 and it subsequently got involved in long, hugely expensive and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The USA has not been left in a better position after all this. One might attribute it all to Islam (not slamming that religion, I assure you, just noting that the USA has had less-than-optimal dealings with some of its adherents).

So. If time travel is possible, why didn’t a certain pious rug merchant in Mecca have a fatal accident long before he ever wrote the word Recite for the first time?

Why didn’t Adolph Hitler die when injured in WW1 or Lenin die of any number of the diseases he’d had before the Germans smuggled him into pre-revolutionary Russia? Such things would not have been difficult for a ruthless time-travelling nation to organize and would have prevented many problems.

OK, maybe not Washington, but the same principles apply to any other nation.

Or any other group in the world.

Eventually you have to start buying into some real tinfoil hat propositions...

Sadly or happily, logic would suggest that time travel is impossible - other than that constant move into the future we are all taking part in. Nice for sci-fi stories, but that’s it.

TarnishedPenny said:

Thought experiment time.

Let’s say that time travel is indeed possible.

It would seem likely, perhaps almost certain, that its secret would be held by governments or at least one government.

Let’s assume that it would be Washington.

So why has the world gone so sour since, say, the year 2000 for the USA? Its economy took a massive kick following 9/11 and it subsequently got involved in long, hugely expensive and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The USA has not been left in a better position after all this. One might attribute it all to Islam (not slamming that religion, I assure you, just noting that the USA has had less-than-optimal dealings with some of its adherents).

So. If time travel is possible, why didn’t a certain pious rug merchant in Mecca have a fatal accident long before he ever wrote the word Recite for the first time?

Why didn’t Adolph Hitler die when injured in WW1 or Lenin die of any number of the diseases he’d had before the Germans smuggled him into pre-revolutionary Russia? Such things would not have been difficult for a ruthless time-travelling nation to organize and would have prevented many problems.

OK, maybe not Washington, but the same principles apply to any other nation.

Or any other group in the world.

Eventually you have to start buying into some real tinfoil hat propositions...

Sadly or happily, logic would suggest that time travel is impossible - other than that constant move into the future we are all taking part in. Nice for sci-fi stories, but that’s it.

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In a word.....profiteering!

The people that run these shows want to make money and care nothing for the consequences or deaths they bring. We're just cannon fodder to them and always have been.

TarnishedPenny said:

Thought experiment time.

Let’s say that time travel is indeed possible.

It would seem likely, perhaps almost certain, that its secret would be held by governments or at least one government.

Let’s assume that it would be Washington.

So why has the world gone so sour since, say, the year 2000 for the USA? Its economy took a massive kick following 9/11 and it subsequently got involved in long, hugely expensive and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The USA has not been left in a better position after all this. One might attribute it all to Islam (not slamming that religion, I assure you, just noting that the USA has had less-than-optimal dealings with some of its adherents).

So. If time travel is possible, why didn’t a certain pious rug merchant in Mecca have a fatal accident long before he ever wrote the word Recite for the first time?

Why didn’t Adolph Hitler die when injured in WW1 or Lenin die of any number of the diseases he’d had before the Germans smuggled him into pre-revolutionary Russia? Such things would not have been difficult for a ruthless time-travelling nation to organize and would have prevented many problems.

OK, maybe not Washington, but the same principles apply to any other nation.

Or any other group in the world.

Eventually you have to start buying into some real tinfoil hat propositions...

Sadly or happily, logic would suggest that time travel is impossible - other than that constant move into the future we are all taking part in. Nice for sci-fi stories, but that’s it.

Click to expand...

The only way time travel makes sense is if time exists on multiple tracks. In other words, if I go back in time and change things, then the world I've changed is on a completely different track. My changes would not affect the world and the time track from which I came. If you don't concede that, then you have a logical impossibility. If I changed time enough, then everything would be different and I never would have been born (nor would anyone else), so how could I have gone back in time? It doesn't make any sense.

The premise is kind of fun to think about, but it really doesn't make any sense. If Leonardo da Vinci really came from the future then he could have done far more amazing things than even he did, introducing technology that was far beyond what existed at the time.

LexxRuthless said:

William Shakespeare . . . Ben Franklin . . . Leonardo DaVinci . . . Archimedes . . . time travelers from the future?"

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To me it's more amazing to think that great thinkers have arisen throughout history with the capacity to see beyond current preconceptions and advance human progress.

HectorBidon said:

To me it's more amazing to think that great thinkers have arisen throughout history with the capacity to see beyond current preconceptions and advance human progress.

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IOW these are people who INVENT the future, not DESCEND from it.

My take on time travel: Humans fuck things up. If back-travel were possible, some human would have gone back to observe the Big Bang... and would have fucked it up. Our very existence demonstrates the impossibility of back-travel.

gordo12 said:

In a word.....profiteering!

The people that run these shows want to make money and care nothing for the consequences or deaths they bring. We're just cannon fodder to them and always have been.

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Aye-yep. What I said. Such claims are so easy to make.

Nobody has ever been able to show however how Big Oil is somehow better off now that the Middle East is on fire. Or that (picking the usual culprits) the Jews benefitted from WW2. Or that Bush & Cheney Inc made a massive profit off of 9/11. Or whatever.

Hypoxia said:

IOW these are people who INVENT the future, not DESCEND from it.

My take on time travel: Humans fuck things up. If back-travel were possible, some human would have gone back to observe the Big Bang... and would have fucked it up. Our very existence demonstrates the impossibility of back-travel.

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TarnishedPenny said:

Thought experiment time.

Let’s say that time travel is indeed possible.

It would seem likely, perhaps almost certain, that its secret would be held by governments or at least one government.

Let’s assume that it would be Washington.

So why has the world gone so sour since, say, the year 2000 for the USA? Its economy took a massive kick following 9/11 and it subsequently got involved in long, hugely expensive and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The USA has not been left in a better position after all this. One might attribute it all to Islam (not slamming that religion, I assure you, just noting that the USA has had less-than-optimal dealings with some of its adherents).

So. If time travel is possible, why didn’t a certain pious rug merchant in Mecca have a fatal accident long before he ever wrote the word Recite for the first time?

Why didn’t Adolph Hitler die when injured in WW1 or Lenin die of any number of the diseases he’d had before the Germans smuggled him into pre-revolutionary Russia? Such things would not have been difficult for a ruthless time-travelling nation to organize and would have prevented many problems.

OK, maybe not Washington, but the same principles apply to any other nation.

Or any other group in the world.

Eventually you have to start buying into some real tinfoil hat propositions...

Sadly or happily, logic would suggest that time travel is impossible - other than that constant move into the future we are all taking part in. Nice for sci-fi stories, but that’s it.

Click to expand...

The funny thing about travelling back in time is, you can't remove the reason of your mission, if you happen to have one. You may or may not be able to change anything else, but definitely can't change what you intended to achieve, because doing that would create a paradox: since you are in your past there is a travel back in time in your future, but if you remove the reason for it you wouldn't be doing it, so wouldn't be there, and wouldn't be able to change the past..

Conclusion, if travelling back in time is possible at all it should be exceptionally observation only. And as far just observation goes, I can't see why it shouldn't be possible.

LupusDei said:

The funny thing about travelling back in time is, you can't remove the reason of your mission, if you happen to have one. You may or may not be able to change anything else, but definitely can't change what you intended to achieve, because doing that would create a paradox: since you are in your past there is a travel back in time in your future, but if you remove the reason for it you wouldn't be doing it, so wouldn't be there, and wouldn't be able to change the past..

Conclusion, if travelling back in time is possible at all it should be exceptionally observation only. And as far just observation goes, I can't see why it shouldn't be possible.

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Well, to my mind, if you can get close enough to observe, you can get close enough to act. Paradoxes have no magic powers; they don’t stop or block; they merely show flaws in logic. The Grandfather Paradox to my mind only shows that time travel just ain’t possible.

RubenR said:

I've heard about a theory (not sure if it was only some thought exercise or a real thing) about a mirror, light-years away. looking at earth in such a mirror would enable you to look into the past.

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Quite so. When we look at the stars, we are seeing ancient history, what was happening many years ago when the light we are seeing now started its voyage. So the mirror would show us what once happened here. (The definition might be a bit fuzzy, of course. )

Multiverse hypotheses allow for back-travel in time, but only to branch-off yet another universe. It gets crowded in there, what with all those universes piling up at every decision point. Untold gazillions of universes! In some of them, oatmeal is good for you!

Meanwhile, we're all traveling into the future, one second at a time. Hang on.

frank lloyd wright....there is no other explanation.

TarnishedPenny said:

Thought experiment time.

Let’s say that time travel is indeed possible.

It would seem likely, perhaps almost certain, that its secret would be held by governments or at least one government.

Let’s assume that it would be Washington.

So why has the world gone so sour since, say, the year 2000 for the USA? Its economy took a massive kick following 9/11 and it subsequently got involved in long, hugely expensive and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The USA has not been left in a better position after all this. One might attribute it all to Islam (not slamming that religion, I assure you, just noting that the USA has had less-than-optimal dealings with some of its adherents).

So. If time travel is possible, why didn’t a certain pious rug merchant in Mecca have a fatal accident long before he ever wrote the word Recite for the first time?

Why didn’t Adolph Hitler die when injured in WW1 or Lenin die of any number of the diseases he’d had before the Germans smuggled him into pre-revolutionary Russia? Such things would not have been difficult for a ruthless time-travelling nation to organize and would have prevented many problems.

OK, maybe not Washington, but the same principles apply to any other nation.

Or any other group in the world.

Eventually you have to start buying into some real tinfoil hat propositions...

Sadly or happily, logic would suggest that time travel is impossible - other than that constant move into the future we are all taking part in. Nice for sci-fi stories, but that’s it.

Click to expand...

If time travel was held by the U.S. government sometime in the future or even now, why would they change the past? America is not in that bad a position. Sure a lot of the world hates us, but it has been the same for a long, long time.

Then again, theory has it that changing the past will make the future so unknowable that anyone in their right mind would never attempt to change the past. They might change an outlying variable somewhere along the time line, but the main variable, nope to many unknowns.

Hell, kill Hitler and America loses to the Japanese because the Russians now don't have to fight the Germans and join forces with Japan to gain access to the food bowl of the world, America.

Theory also has it that the only way to go into the future is with someone who came from that future so you get to the a real place.

Think of time, your time, as a straight thread looking back and as a frayed thread going forward. The present is that place were the frayed end starts to come together once you step forward onto one of those frayed strands.

rae121452 said:

frank lloyd wright....there is no other explanation.

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His structures leak.

I note assumptions that travelers from the future would know of advanced technologies. But suppose Dunuld Tromp were transported to Tasmania 800 years ago. How would Twitter expertise be helpful?

Or let's say that localized time-warps are possible and anyone could be caught up, like in a whirlwind, and deposited somewhere, somewhen. The time traveler could be just an ordinary peasant, now trapped in an alien environment. Oops.

The other way around is more likely. We are surrounded by peasants from the past. That explains racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism, religion, and gambling.

Hypoxia said:

His structures leak.

.

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Exactly.

I don't pretend to have any great wisdom about the future, but I think it's safe to say that people of the future won't want to live in leaky houses. Nor would they want to foist them on the people in their past.

Naturally this popped up in my reading list today. If you go to the past would you even be able to remember the future or ?

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co..._content=link&utm_term=2018-11-14_top-stories

gordo12 said:

Naturally this popped up in my reading list today. If you go to the past would you even be able to remember the future or ?

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co..._content=link&utm_term=2018-11-14_top-stories

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The author has obviously never sat watching water boil.

Hypoxia said:

His structures leak.

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can we really hold him responsible for our primitive technology?

rae121452 said:

can we really hold him responsible for our primitive technology?

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Did Leonardo's structures leak? Do the pyramids leak? A shoddy designer blames the craftspeople.