Transcripts For CSPAN2 Time Travel 20161223

And with those industrial contaminants all of these things with corporate control and that is worth the dressing to trust these messages and we need to do that work now all because we really do need to trust our authority all to be on the same page we are not there yet with conspiracy theories that come up with the gm macedo and monsanto there are all kinds of theories. I am studying Public Health phnom my concentration is policy. So how do you work towards creating policy that would be effective but also a direct cause like social issues . This day huge issue what does this mean with be interventions . That was the topic of my last book. And they did not match up with their own priorities. That was the ada was cheap and easy to be in the most pour and deprived settings okay so we did that. And bill lot of good attention and then they were not used right away. And then they scented the anthropologist. Did dont consider malaria a killer disease the nets are square but they live in a round have. And the people on the ground is totally different they have community if is the first two years of life than malaria comes and goes. And all you need to do is go to school and work for six weeks out of the year for flu season. Many rauscher hands during floozies in. I have a question of us contracts between this book and the statements so what are your personal actions that you have done to prepare or would you do in your daily life to avoid epidemic diseases quick. And to livein the microbial world this part of nature and increase the idea to live in nature free environment if you think of the of long history of the of battle with microsoft sphere the microbe so all of these patterns sell a period time when i grew up with that feeling it is simple. This will not be a part of my life. And to adjust to this new reality. You can get your books signed up here. [inaudible conversations] military forces something i think that they really believe they have this trump card that can defeat anyone but it is not true it is very powerful little the uncertain situations and can only destroy things it cannot build the new ordinance in its place. What we dont want to do is respond in such a way to produce more militants and militant organizations they want us to overreact and occupy muslim countries they want us to torture people and do things that will allow the and to make their case against us. Good afternoon. With the history of time travel has anybody come here from the future . With anybody here from that past . Not give any i sure did be relieved i am the executive director and an matter where you come from rivals like to welcome you today. [applause] and our presenting partner who does such as a great job for us. Also thanks to this session the wonderful friends and great supporters. We will announce of winner and somebody will win it. Selling tickets that of merchandise table so well you are waiting in line you can have proceeds to benefit the boston book festival. So now lets go to amain event. [applause] thankyou very much. Happy to be period wonderful to have you. I dont care. So wouldnt that be possible to travel back in time to teach a futures surged in dictator a manner . With more polite variant you write about so much like chaos and genius and isaac newton this is also my love this book i wish you could take us back to 1895 will you read from the beginning . A man stands at the end up a court nor, the 19th century and in the flickering light of the oil lamp examined same machine made of nickel and ivory with brass rails and rides. So somehow and not even for the poor reader to visualize. Our hero after a drop of oil and plants himself in the south would and he is going on a journey and so are we. By the wave and time breaks he was so most of 48 of the paleface and to not much else. P. Will lack even a nine did name just a time traveler. Nobody thought and that machine disobeyed futuristic bicycle. This from ended busiest who goes by the initials ag because that sounds more serious than and herbert. His family a believer of free love and bicycles. Thank you. [applause] now we work through time so easily there are time travel so imagine and immortality Climate Change will be on the north but also to invent a new mode of thought. Really . But this is the starting point for me thinking there is history also knowing that is not the answer one but believe me. Why issue until always be there 71 to a far but nobody is actually traveling through time but here in as the 19th to said past and future have always said one but they were mostly if he can bad were where do i need to the 12 from his mansion uh court to run so would this like daytime travel. Dave usher that you remember of the connecticut yankee. But this one was eight engineer womb he whines but just like mark twain the first to have the typewriter ended tiffany. Cspan said beef and dairy. And then is waxed ahead so the way he doesnt is to give all little lecture to his friend said tells them everything he learns about time is wrong. It is just another dimension like space. You can imagine as a direction every object has four dimensions and if it had no duration did emily exist for an instant so a imagine extending into the past and into the future and is similar on that track. Because Something Different of the reality of this in proceeding cam and you were seen as a catch for the Fourth Dimension where does he take us . He thinks of time at the fourth it was obscure but in the air. And it was 10 years later it is specialty with relativity and that is why we know time is the fourth to trenchant no way was surprised. But they did not believe it and now all we dont have to bother with that. You write this notion to become a part of the orthodoxy writing about time travel but he wants a good story. And with the of proposition. Is anybody who planning to buy the book. You are bound to be disappointed there are people now who talk about time travel interstellar i m sure that you saw with the scientific advisor a relic to this. Is a sexy idea i would even say impossible but how the ada developed on a parallel track not just time travel but overall assortment of ways to think about time that was unsettled as they always have but tough and so soon after the. Will get the fantasy by h. G. Wells. Philosophy before einstein took over had a view of time these were people thinking about the psychology of time how do we perceive time house are perception so malleable . White is one month seemed to stretch john into an e eternity when brcs six bubbling get my age . But scientist for not interested they needed it to be a real thing and einstein on of one hand would reevaluate the way we think about time. Of falling in the tradition of newton. And it was of very real thing to be measured. I feel you coming down heavily on the sides of the philosophers. I like the scientist. But they dont own time but our conception of time is an assortment of things. And with the sciencefiction writers and influenced by literary writers to do something very new. But as a contemporary of wellesley great work and that narrative to reconstruct to twisted around. Key creates that theory of memory with validity and psychologists today that think about terry or involuntary. So soon after they were focusing on time in complete the new ways. What is memory . Into even predates the computers. With the sensory input. And the psychologists knows that now and philosophers have known that. Initiative is an active process. We know that they cannot simply call up that will in a memory that is in their at anything that has come in voluntarily. And we also know that memory is an active process every time we remember we recreating. And my appeal of the different and we although it is possible and memories that turn out to be false. Why . Because our minds are our minds. So ari suggesting we should and you love him because you quotations in here but time is a river that is seeping along but i am the river. Is a fire that consumes me. Juan and as you can see he loves to speak in mid rattles and i believe its a person as fiction can be a very effective way fed did not have better luck with time. So yes it is dave river in but we use these metaphors all the time but also i am the river. He was very concerned with perception and consciousness and memory. Ask yourself. What is creating negative sense of the difference of the past and the future . Why do i have said chase strong and that now is is floating of but i would like to say some of meyer and my sense that the line they have more talks that way but it is my sense the past had not happened yet. But they talk about the great literary minds. Why is this so difficult to bring that notion of time into mental focus . Talking about the up prez and tour though whole project or texture of time and why it is hard to grasp. Both off. Here is what we are very familiar with. Why when we focus on it. Augustine said if the the asks me i know perfectly well that as soon as somebody makes me explain it i dont know. We all feel that way. That is more than a quip. Not just to say it is an illusion because when i tried to explain it i dont know. And then even though i cannot explain, i do have a lot of knowledge. So finally to break down to talk about what time actually is. The case i am trying to make even though it is impossible to say definitively that we know a great deal what is the shape of that . Again is not firm and it is complicated. From all of these different things. Whether we were science students or not. But steven hawking says to the ghost i was there a long time but nobody came. Thats true he announced she had been an addition. I could not see because of the lights said they were from the future. Nobody is even willing to lie . But hawking loans to talk about time travel and he doesnt really think it is impossible but his proof is that if there were such a thing we would have time travelers from the feature in our midst. I net i met a woman at a Cocktail Party she said you have to meet my point of plant and he said because you to have time travelers from the future because they are afraid advocacies but the lakes firms. But i am not sure want to go back to King Arthurs Court to. Can i do both quite. No. Laugh laugh in but to believe she is the present day we incarnation of the manifestation but is the time travel crooks yes and have of course, now i see in its and then we can imagine ourselves into the future the way the people which is snowden and missed and sure we tell these serious anhui sqf bassett and were pretty adept. With a fifth section so those set in the most ruthless analyst. The talk about the man in bohai castle. There are two wonderful books you could get from around here and theyre both examples of what is called alternative history where you imagine the past of what might have been another book the plot against the america he imagined would america would be like if the fascists had one but. Is valuable forest to do in alternative history and to be done more or less rigorous. I know historians to enjoy a to work out what would have happened if quick senate has some use. So what if the japanese toward germans divided the United States . And then works it out and with pdf time travel or if you arrange and the ability to place ourselves the us a path. So another wannabe but i imagine none quite a tent traveler ever name but that is the proof he is not really traveling through time behest to live this same day over and over until he shifts his rage. But it back to the future it was huge and they could not have done that in 1894 with the time machine. What about that perception . The movie is blown and the delorean is another great device of time machine. There is every about every time travel story here is of a teenager but he looks at is parents and a light bulb eliminates to think they were teenagers once patted my dad feel about girls . Could i find out . And the fantasy takes off from their. Who meeting parents and to say that now in the heart turn your sympathies much more than physics or anything else. Yap the magnificent writer but after the nobel prize for literature and those that sold and venture into time travel but tried to avoid literal time travel to involve a dreamer as an alternative history but it is not the path that is changing but the future. If he dreams he wakes up now the world is a little bit different because of what he dreamed and is the only person that is aware of this. Sometimes terrible things happen. Because technology continues to change our relationship and maybe these algorithms bring the future so what about what we have now greg spirit that is of a good question. And we need to keep an eye out to live through it. We live in this instantaneous Network World and information comes to us on big screens and a little screens and sometimes several screens simultaneously sometimes we get a message from the same person if they say and then say i will go one but we have tremendous success. We know more about the lives of beethoven and and stravinskys and a or what they knew vote their predecessors but we know that music was that when we enough to available to us from ancient times but also what was recorded yesterday. It is all mixed up to get there so we in the eternal presence. Use say there is a is a philosophy that is exactly where we should be. So spending time to do that we are told dont waste brain cells agonizing over what might have bent or what is coming. Dont waste brain cells wishing for what would happen immerse yourself. And i decided that is not high want to live. Plants live in and the now. I am pretty sure but what makes us human is that to we know about the past and can imagine the future we think and to mix memory with the anticipation and that is good. To have a question pertaining it up and. To have a wish list quick. I always thought i wanted to go to the future and how many of those have no interest and rather go to the past. But i really would earn some manhattan if but now we are digressing laugh laugh. But we were talking about backandforth. Is true of believer in what 23 year average if flight to the license different into his eye and what he wrote down what he saw. would you do . Just tried to beat it. A we dont want anybody to go home from here. [laughter] just to answer your question i do want to go to the future. I am not as thrilled in and future is looking bleak provide to wonder puerto rated senate turns into the proverbial hightech and you are ready for of loan from but i want to see but that is like. They would just plug human to make you a cyber. I think its fair to say that the best time machines we have our books. You say we need these stories for history, mystery, nostalgia and hope. Is it hopeful, lets say yes. I wonder how much time related management techniques are synchronized with this fictional investigation of time travel because i think looking back at some of the management techniques a little over 100yearsold, but i also look at the now where we are using Data Analytics to understand and use that to understand. You mean like a stopwatch . I see the fiction of time travel going along with the use of data in the industrial world. That is an interesting question. Its not something i go into in this book, but it is true that 100 years ago, a little more than 100 years ago, not at the beginning of the industrial revolution, but closer to our time, people started to get obsessed with measuring time very precisely and making the workers more efficient, and that is a nightmare that continues to this day because we are all too good at talking one another. Now we have this dedicated to whats coming next. Yes, please. Thank you very much. I wonder if you could address the idea in creativity as a time travel. The idea that it is sparked in ones imagination to help create new technologies, new ways of doing things. Is that time travel when you create something thats going to be used in the future . I wouldnt go so far as to say every spark of creativity is time travel. I am saying at the other way around that to think of time commit to imagine the future, we need to be creative, its a creative act either way. Without premonition. That is another kind of time travel fantasy and there are people who started writing books about im in the early part of the 20th century that were based on their experience of waking up after a dream and discovering a van or something later that their dream was actually true and thinking i had access to the future which of course i dont believe actually happens. I think it does. [laughter] you do merit of imagination. I dont know how close premonition and Imagination Life on another. I heard this story told that when the modern keyboard was invented is designed to actually slow down typos because they would get stuck so today we are still stuck with that keyboard even though there might be more alternatives. So when we think about time and we go through the course of the day for whatever reason with this divided 24 hour parts per day as we thought about time im undergoing is there an effective way to divide the day if it is 24 parts, would it be ten or 100 or do you think at all about that . Iem loot to the im loathe to give personal advice. But i would say the most effective and Creative Things to do is to not start dividing into regular parts of it but our obsession with time slip away. Why, what is the advantage in a . Because we need a little of everything. We need some balance. We dont always need to be multitasking working at high speed. We dont need to be acutely aware. Sometimes we need to let our mind drift. In that reality going back to 1814 where they talk about what they called the universe rigid in the cause of the future of these things of the necessity for the next come everything any logical kind of chain unbreakable. There are still physicists like to think that way but everything is determined by the law in physics. I think we know better. Yoyou write it as a prison ad they call themselves free. I dont know if you mentioned in the book of my favorite is by ray bradbury and i wonder if you could comment on it especially because it rubs up against the chaos theory. People are going to mention their Favorite Movie or tv show and the odds are that it is not described in my book. But in this case, bingo, jackpot. Its a terrific story im sure a lot of people know it. It involves a sort of operation safari where for money big game hunters are tired of elephants and lions can go back and shoot dinosaurs. I imagine eric trump of their time. Not to spoil the story totally but the twist is somebody steps on a butterfly, goes off the path and just stepping on the butterfly changes the course of history so some terrible stuff happens in the present. And this is before the chaos theorists invented the notion of the butterfly effect which is based on the same premise, but it raises a number of these issues that come up. You ask yourself if you go into the past, first of all would you be able to interact with it or what yowould you just be a freefloating consciousness, and then if you can interact with it, can you change things and if you do change things, and this is a more sophisticated question, but its one the Science Fiction writers got to first, if you are in history, but history tend to get back to its natural track. You can take your pick. We have the end that expresses the former view that yes you can mess things up that history tries to get itself back onto the path. Or maybe we have our own versions. Youre now is not mine now. Im glad you mentioned eric trump. I meant to not do that. Im sorry. Its Health Politics arhealth poy time travel in our culture. Does your book touch on that . I dont think theres any politics in my book. I do think about nostalgia. You can think about nostalgia without having to discuss its political consequence. Nostalgia is another kind of mental time travel. It is another way that we imagine the past and sometimes our imagination misleads us. We are overly created and nostalgia works both ways. You can remember the past and make it out to be rosy colors or imagine the past and make it out to be more dire than it was and it could be a matter of personality. I said enough about the current election. So, from the earliest recording evidence. They explain the current problems and concerns in terms of relief from this larger system. And during the course of the conversation this afternoon, it struck me that time travel sounds like a rational mechanized response. In a way you could modify or get away by going to the future or the past making changes or just getting away from what you are in the middle of right now. In your research and writing did you rub up against ideas like that at all . Buwhat i see as many religios may be every religion, when they construct a spiritual view of time and try to think about time when it is common in religion to try to think about being outside of time. Eternity, whatever it means to you, it is not just a length of time and infinitive, it is also a way of being outside of time. When the ancient egyptians, when the pharaohs excuse me. Themselves to preserve their bodies they were not thinking about the future. They were not thinking about being dug up by people in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were thinking about another world that was outside of time. And i think a lot of religions when they imagine Something Like having our against thinking about timelessness. So maybe this is the thrust of your question. Both spirituality and time travel are a way of escaping from something that otherwise is within its grasp. You see anyone that thinks about time travel is ultimately thinking of escaping death. I did eventually arrive at that conclusion in a way that is what time is. Its fun to go back to the delorean that workin but workine background of every time travel story is a desire for immortality because what does tim do, it buries us. I look forward to reading the book even if the answer is no to my question. Do you talk about or delve into the book the shape of time covered the kind of alternative trajectory and visual art or production . What is his idea . Is kind of a pre colombian historian thinking through different ways of looking at art history that are not about iconography but also think about the form and he talks about how all of the tools are works of art and tries to address what is on the hierarchy as well as the record of human production. Again alternate ways of looking at the time. I am a junior in high school and we were having the conversation in english class about how authors used arising from the past to communicate with people from the future or to sort of live on through their writings. So i was wondering if you touched upon anything like that in your book. That is a good question. People that write books or do any kind of creative art is meant to last us to be thinking in some way. It is a way of sending a message to the future. People might not have expressed it that way hundreds of years ago. It might be that you are more immediate impulse is to send a message to people in the prese present. But we do think about prosperity and sending messages to the future is something that we are sometimes more conscious of and sometimes less conscious of. Another thing i write about at some length in the book is the phenomena of people buried in time capsules which became very popular at the 50 years ago, maybe a little bit more. And there is a way of sending the message to the future and saying heres what we were like. Heres what our culture was like. Im going to assemble a bunch of objects and books and magazines and artifacts and buried them in a capsules of somebod with somes furious 100 years from now can dig them up and say ha ha. I wondered if ther wonder ifa different perception of time. Being young i was skeptical of the future and saw it as a matter of potential only the state of things that might or might not arise or never would. Have you observed others more interested in time travel with different portions were stages of life . Or maybe you just dont care. I think certainly the interesting time travel starts earlier and earlier. I dont have any sense that the young or the old. Succumb a planet of the apes, shootouts, come back. Its sort of sounds like a way of explaining it. We spend i dont know how many millions of dollars in the frequencies of what i think is the frequency of hydrogen with messages that we are sending out to the universe which they may be receiving 10,000 years from now. We are looking at the past, yes. When we look at stars, we look at the path of the stars and that is an idea that people recognized even before einstein. As soon as i hope i dont miss up to history too much, but it was in the middle of the 19th century that people established not only that it has a finite speed o but exactly what that w. Maxwell did that in establishing electromagnetism. So immediately, a few smart people recognized that meant the light that was coming to us from very far away in distance was also coming to us from very far away in time and thats why we measure the distance in terms of light years. I dont think we can see into the future. Yes, just a couple more. In the beginning of your talk, you started about mentioning wells in 1895 he was a futurist thinking about future times. I wonder about darwin and how by that point, evolution was more or less in the popular consciousness and also there were a lot of explorers digging up bones and other countries and yogive the age of exploration so thinking about the past is kind of a new thing in the popular imagination so i wonder if you touched on that as well come and whether the urge to think about how they fit in the past, is that part of what influenced wells as well as thinking about the future. Absolutely. And i have really only given a sketchy view of the things that made it possible finally in 1895 for each t. Wells to invent this idea. You are right. H. G. Wells as a student studied darwin and also creating a new sense of geology that involved visualizing ancient ages of the past. And as you suggested, archaeology was also a new thing and people were digging that ancient civilization. For the sense of how old the earth was, it had changed dramatically. Forgive me but i want to end with a reading from this wonderful book if you could read this paragraph for us. Live in the now certain stages advice. The main focus. Immerse ourselves in your experience, basque in the incoming sunshine without the shadows of regret or expectation. But why should we toss away your insight into the times possibilities and paradoxes. We lose ourselves that way. Whats more terrifying revelation can there be than