I have dedicated my life to studying the world. And when I say that, I don’t mean it in the way that it’s commonly understood, the way a biologist might study an amoeba or a rabbi the Torah. When I say I’ve studied the world I mean it more in the way that a good detective studies a suspect. I have been tracking the world’s movements, analyzing its habits and monitoring the company it keeps. My goal has not been to meet some arbitrary watermark of knowledge about my subject, but to actually ascertain its motives; to get inside its head and understand where it’s coming from, and more importantly, to predict with some certainty where it’s going. I have spent my life on this pursuit, which is why it pleases me now to declare that my research is complete. My findings are conclusive, and ready for publication. And here's the summary:
I am The Historian, and it is my earnest and passionate conviction that time travel, the ability for human beings to finally dislodge themselves from Time's stubborn trappings, is not only possible but necessary, and will be developed and ubiquitously implemented before this next century is over.
Yes, this is remarkable, and although time travel will change everything, thrusting humanity firmly into the next plane of self-awareness, the most remarkable aspect of my findings is perhaps not the existence of time travel itself, but rather the specific form which it will take. Scientists and theologians alike have unanimously declared time travel impossible, citing the monstrous and unforgivable ramifications its existence would pose on causality and free will. Their arguments in themselves are perfectly valid, and my solution does not somehow dismantle their basic and irrefutable logic. No, the answer to time travel has eluded us for so long because we have failed miserably to conceive of how time travel actually works, which itself reflects a larger and fundamental failure to conceive of what Time actually is.
I can conceive of Time’s true nature even now, and its simple brilliance shines like a crystalline formation in my mind. I can do this not because of my own genius, as if I am somehow the smartest man who ever lived (because this is most likely not the case), but because, appropriately, the timing is right. Like true Aristotelians we must view the natural world as the fabric from which our thoughts are weaved, limiting us to the ideas and abstractions which have already found purchase somewhere in the earth. As this fabric changes so do our thoughts, and at any given time one can scale the mountainous terrain of our culture to discover new and unexpected treasures at its formidable peaks. At various points these zeniths have furnished the discovery of mathematics, machine-assisted flight, and electricity, each in its turn propelling human civilization irreversibly onward. The next treasure up for grabs is time travel, and this twenty-first century is already supplying us the language and popular culture necessary to completely realign our relationship with Time.
The Bishkek Daily Steingard has allowed me the opportunity to completely lay out my findings, which I will do over the next several months and years, but there are two basic premises which must be accepted before any further successful arguments can be made:
1. The world that we experience can be wholly defined by the relationship between Space and Time. All of human experience can be broken down into a ratio of these two properties; if for some reason something decreases in “Timeness” it will compensate by increasing in “Spaceness” and vice-versa. The conception of some kind of "space-time continuum" sufficiently describes this essential fact of the universe.
2. Our world is changing, hurtling forward more quickly than it ever has before, and the atomic natures of Space and Time are now on the brink of a necessary and long overdue paradigm shift, which will take place as soon as we can conceive of it or perhaps a little after. This shift is the result of many cultural factors, not the least of which is the advent of cell phones, and to a lesser extent iPods. This shift will eventually produce time travel as a necessary byproduct.
My friends, we are hurtling uncontrollably towards the post future, and I will be The Historian.