Traveling Through Time Will Kill You (But Not How You Might Think)
Oh so often when I have discussions with friends about time travelling I end up being the party pooper. Mind you, I never even bring up the subject of time paradoxes (such as meeting yourself) but rather a much more simple problem that we often omit: our immune system.
We take for granted the nature and composition of our bodies because we don't have a proper perception about who we are. We are not a unit of life as many of us like to believe but rather a cluster of thousands of forms of lives all meshed up together into one ultra living thing - us. In a way we are a small universe that hosts all sorts of living organisms (from bacteria to viruses) and if something is off, shit can hit the fan pretty fast.
For example, when your feet start smelling is because the balance of the Force (of your body) has been disturbed. Some living organisms overwhelmed and triumphed over others and the smell you get from your feet is the scent of their victory over the dead bodies of the losers. You ad some fungal cream and you kill the excess of those guys and the balance of the Force returns.
If we were to travel way back in time or even into the future we would probably end up dead (along with many others around us) within weeks due to lack of adaptability from our immune system. Our "Force" will be fucked in so many ways from so many different organisms. The major reason would be immune development. People back in time would have different diseases, vulnerabilities and most importantly different adaptations for different kinds of illnesses and germs. In the future much the same would occur.
A recent historical example of this can be demonstrated with Europeans when they discovered the Americas. They didn't have to do much since the natives started dropping like from common diseases that had no immunity. Many Europeans died as well. For example, part of reason Africa was not colonised as easy was due to the tropical environment that killed Europeans by the thousands. A great book on this is Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond.
I understand that after reading this shows like Doctor Who might seem a bit silly (the new season sucks anyways - too much political correctness) but I hope I have given you another excuse to be dick among friends.
Maybe if we would have the technology to time traveling, we will develop in the same time a technology to make us stronger against disease. And we could survive those "jumps" in time
Woh... I've never even thought of this and it's so simple! Just as you pointed out this is basically what happened when people from Europe started coming over to the 'new world' carrying all their germs they became immune to over in the big cities.
If we would go back in time we would probably make a lot of people sick from germs we are used to now that they would never have seen. As well as us being killed off from stuff that's not around anymore.
Great post mate! Looking forward to more :D
Amazing. I never considered this point, never thought about microbial danger.
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.
Thank you for your work
This is essentially a variation of the grandfather paradox, in which you do events that causes your existence to fade away. If you kill yourself, one of these scenarios might happen.
The Boring Theory
MULTIVERSE! This creates another universe in which you from the future murders you from the past. The universe remains intact and all is well, but with changes in the future due to your presence not being felt in the future.
The Theory that Loves You
In this theory, the universe itself would prevent you from ever reaching your past self, thus unable to kill your past self. Call it fate intervening.
Sadly, time doesn't work that way.
And disease doesn't work that way.
But, it is a good theory based on our current popular beliefs about time and disease.
The reality is that your universe ends a half inch away from your out stretched finger. And, in your universe exists your pasts and your futures. So, visiting the past, or the future all exists within your timeline and anyone else that chooses to interact with it.
First, let me tell you that going to your past to "fix" something doesn't work. You have to heal it energetically. You have to change who you are "now", and this will change both your past and your future. And, it will make your mind hurt for a while, that the get in touch with your inner child meditation ... well, your friends/family remember the new story.
I was unaware that Tralfamadorians existed among us in this day and age (and in Steemit!).
that's my article of the week Kyriacos.. excellent. Original and creative. I like your adaptive thinking and although I've often pondered the perils of time travel, space travel etc. I'd never fully appreciated the immune system flaw. it deserves a full response.
I have read some interesting ideas about the immune system as being like a Second Brain. It has it's own rhythm sending out a molecular sweep twice a day at approximately 12 hour intervals. The immnune system does not just seek out pathogens. It actively monitors, calculates and reports on all the molecules in our bloodstream and sends that information for processing. It's remarkable. You can visualise the separate parts of the immune system. Just concentrating on for example Dentritic T Cells can actually make them more active. I gave my immune system a character so I could communicate with it. I can't tell you more about it's character but it does have a clipboard and is efficient. If I'm sick, it get's sick too !
If you went travelling to other planets you might be completely immune to their pathogens or succumb to them in seconds. I reckon our presence could infect a host planet with terrible consequences.. and that is why when we send probes to mars, they don't send them to land in the most promising places for fear of contaminating the soil. even with a probe which has been produced in an aseptic lab by technicians in funky suits, then flown through the vacuum of space at near zero temperature, exposed to deadly cosmic rays and plummeted through the atmosphere at ridiculous miles per hour. ( A tardigarde would easily survive that).. Even weirder, it seems that a host of life manages to exist on the outside of the International Space Station. and on that note, I'll stop right there.
thanks again for the excellent post. It will become enmeshed into my boring after dinner monologues. (I can just see the chin rubbing, murmurs and eye rolling... from both of my daughters) who are currently 22months and 4months old !! :)
oh yeah I almost forgot.. I assume from your name that like me you have Greek heritage. I read somewhere that anyone alive today with Greek heritage almost certainly has ancestry (no matter how remote or distant) to one or MORE of the Ancient Greek Philosophers..
Which uncle is yours?
I'm betting on Heraclitus who saw time as real and flowing as opposed to his near contemporary my great uncleParmenides who saw time as nothing more than an illusion ;)
I get the idea of nature being the ultimate force in reality but I'm not sure what you mean by we are "not a unit of life but rather thousands of forms of lives all meshed up together"...How are you suppose to know this?
Haven't read the book but what about the thousands of Europeans who settled in Central America, Brazil and other tropical parts of America?
I think the main reason Africa wasn't settled like America was because it wasn't as densely populated especially South America. Civilizations in Africa were more numerous and in some cases more organized like the Ethiopians and West African groups compared to its American counterparts.
I think the point is that we rely on bacteria, like those found in our gut, to digest food. We are also made of millions of cells which can be thought of as "thousands of forms of life all mashed up together." I think it is interesting that everyday we have thousands of cells die and new ones produced. Think of all of the dust that is created by shedding dead skin cells. Indeed, we are individuals, but we are made of living cells. Because of the mutations of viruses and our immune systems, we could possibly (unintentionally) kill off people from the past if we were carrying some bug with us. Assuming there is some new mutation or disease in the future, our immune system would likely be overwhelmed, but people in the future may have had generations of evolution to guard them against that disease.
I've literally never considered this. And I'm beginning to notice that the practice of observing our societies, and the global society, as superorganisms in and of themselves is spreading like wildfire and expressing itself in novelty, like Steemit. Why would we need to travel into the future? There's so much to work to be done here and now. Cheers!
There is a lot to look forward to in our future, I'm sure time travel someday will be possible but I believe it will not be in our life time. Great article thank you for sharing appreciated
I like the idea of traveling into a separate dimension that is an almost perfect replicate of the current dimension. Instead of traveling back in time in the current dimension leading to the grandfather paradox, you sidestep into an adjacent dimension at the desired time. The paradox is now gone, assuming that dimensions are a thing. The movie Synchronicity was based on this idea.
That's kind of the theme of the movie Donnie Darko. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it though so that's all I'll say. Oh, and a giant creepy bunny.