Can consciousness travel to other timelines and maintain memory?

[GregStinson]

Hello. Long time reader, first time poster.

I'm working on a science fiction short story that involves a man "traveling" from timeline to timeline without his control. For example, one day he's a doctor, the next he's a wino bum.

Understanding this is fiction, I'd like to find at least a semblance of an actual explanation for this even if it takes an existing theory and expands it out of the realm of actual plausibility.

Being a layman, I've not much luck just googling what my non-physics mind might consider important keywords.

I was wondering if any of you fine experts here at bautforum might be kind enough to point my research in the right direction.

Also, being new, I'm guessing ATM is the correct place to post this?

Thank you.

[Starfury]

"Traveling" from timeline to timeline without his control....sounds a lot like "Slaughterhouse 5" to me.

[GregStinson]

It's a lot like that.

This story doesn't involve past or future. Each new timeline exists in the present.

In other words, when he finds himself in a separate timeline, it's still the same date and time.

The "time travel" isn't the story. It's the setting of the story.

[GregStinson]

This is probably an example of my ignorance but could string theory help "explain" it?

A near infinite number of dimensions occurring simultaneously?

I was also leaning toward the good old-fashioned "experiment gone wrong" device after seeing all the hubbub over the Hadron Collider swallowing the planet.

I don't want anything at all to do with extraterrestrials.

[Fortis]

I'm working on a science fiction short story that involves a man "traveling" from timeline to timeline without his control. For example, one day he's a doctor, the next he's a wino bum.

Sounds a bit like Quantum Leap. As to the appropriate forum, I suspect that babbling would be the one, as you aren't here trying to defend an ATM theory, rather you are looking for some plausible techno-babble to justify the scenario in your story.

[Cougar]

...could string theory help "explain" it?

Not readily. I'd go with Heisenberg Uncertainty. Through some evolutionary mutation, all the atoms in your traveler's body are highly sensitive to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, such that they occasionally tend to "quantum tunnel" - coherently - to a completely different place and/or time, instantaneously. This is actually the kind of extreme quantum weirdness that Michio Kaku likes to point out - that there is a non-zero probability that your entire body will instantaneously appear on the moon due to quantum tunneling. Of course, the non-zero probability is so small, never to happen in something like trillions of times the current age of the universe, it is effectively zero, as Gell-Mann would point out.

[Paul Beardsley]

I'd go with Cougar's science.

The idea has been done quite a few times, in print and even in film - check out Possible Worlds, a very enjoyable Canadian film which I thought was very non-formulaic.

I don't think you need to convince readers that it's possible, because it probably isn't. But the kind of person who wants to read that kind of story generally accepts that it's probably impossible but they are happy to suspend disbelief anyway. So your task is to signal to them that you've at least thought it through. The way to do this is throw in clues rather than explanations, and then make sure you let the reader see that you've thought it through and you're going to deliver something new.

[GregStinson]

Thank you for the help.

Cougar's suggestion is great!

And I agree with PaulBeardsley about the reader not necessarily needing a straightforward explanation but rather, hints and clues revealed through the narrative.

It's funny Fortis mentioned Quantum Leap because it and LOST were primary inspirations.

I'm still very early in outlining it and it's my first attempt at sci-fi.

Again, thanks for the replies. And if any other ideas about what interesting ideas or theories I should explore, I'd appreciate those too.

[Cougar]

It's funny Fortis mentioned Quantum Leap because it and LOST were primary inspirations.

Yes, it's very Quantum Leap-ish, which used to be a TV series that I actually watched on occasion. Some scripts were pretty good, but the "leap" mechanism was pretty much an incidental black box.

[GregStinson]

It was a fun show.

I gave a bare cupboard version of the setting and as a result, I failed to mention every person on the planet is jumping timelines. The protagonist is the just the only one that notices.

[aastrotech]

So these "timelines" are not like in "Quantum Leap" where "Sam" is jumping timelines in our history? More like "the hero" is jumping around in timelines of a today that might have resulted from different things happening in history like Hitler winning WWII? Or Rome never falling?

How about Heisenberg Uncertainty allows a black hole to suddenly appear in his body Maybe a machine he uses does it to him so he understands what happened and can explain it to the reader as his own thoughts or to some other character. The hole sends him to the alternate timeline. The hole is a connection to all other timelines and he is connected to the hole. It becomes his destiny. The hole appears and he gets sent. He never knows when it will appear or maybe he does etc. That should be enough improblium to power your doubletalk generator. An anthology of short stories? A "Stargate" to other timelines? An exposition of history by an exploration of alternates?

[Chuck]

If I got out of this timeline, should I want to remember it?

[darkhunter]

Or is everyone else jumping and for some reason the protagonist staying put?

[01101001]

If I got out of this timeline, should I want to remember it?

You don't remember the previous one, do you?

[Chuck]

Paths to Otherwhere by James P Hogan is an interesting novel along this line in my opinion.

[GregStinson]

I haven't settled on the "rules" just yet and further research will surely aid me.

At first, I wanted to keep the changes to the world subtle but now the idea of just completely turning history upside down and sideways sounds fun.

[Chuck]

How about drinking too much alcohol moves you to a slightly different timeline? People don't notice because they think they just misremembered things because they were drunk.

[JohnD]

Greg,
This sounds more a philosophy question than a science one.
If someone 'jumps' from one body to another, then they MUST retain some memory of their previous existance, else they would believe they are the original owner of the body and not some new lodger, and would behave as if they were. Indeed, the philosophy question is, how could you tell that they were not the original owner?

The only way in which they might suspect this chronic body jumping without memory would be if the previous owner left notes, rather like someone with long term memory problems. But then they would seem to themselves to be permanently jumping into this 'new' body, and the old notes would just 'update' them. This has been reported as a pathological condition, and Oliver Sacks wrote about it as "The Lost Mariner" in "The man who mistook his wife for a hat".
That might give you some insight.

John

[Drunk Vegan]

One suggestion I might make is that the timeline changes that happen involve only events between the time the character was born, and the present. This could be a result of the jumping happening as the result of a mutation in the individual, and is also in keeping with your Quantum Leap meme.

It might also help focus your writing to concentrate on certain areas you wish to explore. For example, WWII if the character is old enough, or different outcomes of the Cold War, or maybe the computer age never happens for one reason or another, and everyone's still using slide rules. Alternately, there was an * accelerated * leap in technology, and today's present seems like a futuristic utopia (or dystopia).

[IsaacKuo]

I would go with dreams. According to my suggestion, it's not the person who "leaps" from one alternate timeline to another, but rather memories.

In all timelines, the person has suffered some sort of head trauma which leads him to remember all of his dreams as if they were reality. So he has difficulty telling what memories are from real life and what memories are from dreams.

Are the dreams really from alternative timelines? Does he really have the ability to "leap" from one timeline to another, or do the alternate timeline worlds only exist in his mind? It ultimately doesn't matter so much, for story purposes.

[aastrotech]

I would go with dreams. According to my suggestion, it's not the person who "leaps" from one alternate timeline to another, but rather memories.

In all timelines, the person has suffered some sort of head trauma which leads him to remember all of his dreams as if they were reality. So he has difficulty telling what memories are from real life and what memories are from dreams.

Are the dreams really from alternative timelines? Does he really have the ability to "leap" from one timeline to another, or do the alternate timeline worlds only exist in his mind? It ultimately doesn't matter so much, for story purposes.

Sounds like "The Lathe Of Heaven".