▶

00:00 / 00:00

⬇

In the wake of newly released documents from the White House and the federal government describing defense intelligence about "transversable worm holes, star gates and negative energies," the question arises:

Are governments really employing some kind of secret time travel technology? Or is this just another conspiracy theory? Questions aside, various 'whistleblowers' have come forth with claims that they have personally witnessed the use of time travel technology at American military bases.

Whatever one's take on this issue is, what makes the most recent accounts notable is that their explanations of this technology have emphasized an abandonment of a 'time-line' representation of the passage of time in favor of a 'time-loop' representation that resolves the so-called 'butterfly effect.'

Long believed to make time travel a metaphysical impossibility, the 'butterfly effect' is described by the Encyclopedia Britannica as a term "coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s while studying chaos theory, illustrating how small changes in initial conditions can lead to vastly different outcomes in complex systems, such as weather patterns. Lorenz used the metaphor of a butterfly flapping its wings to suggest that such a minor event could ultimately cause significant changes, like a tornado forming elsewhere."

Whether fact or fiction, what makes this 'time-loop' metaphor of particular interest (aside from its potential contemplation value) is that it allows us to create a visual representation of existence consistent with what has long been restricted to philosophy.

As described by philosopher Leonard Piekoff: "The universe is eternal in the literal sense, non-temporal, out of time. Time is a measurement of motion that applies only within the universe." Or in other words, being eternal, the universe might be depicted as a 'loop' with no beginning and no end.

We can't pretend to offer a definitive description of the nature of space-time or the universe, but these 'time travel' claims make for some fascinating introspection. Insofar as any conclusions or meaning can be drawn from all of this, we can only rely on our own individual discernment.

The challenge is not about resolving the seeming contradictions and paradoxes surrounding space-time, but with how we represent the universe for the purposes of understanding it in a way that is closer to being Just Right.