In Search of the Real ME

The real ME can be combination of discrete functions. It is neither only THIS nor THAT. Undoubtedly it is many different things.

The limit of "western thinking" is that someone or something is a binary 1 or zero. That is, it is either good or bad. In eastern philosophy people and things can be and are both good and bad at the same time. Schrödinger showed us this fact in his feline thought experiment where the cat could be thought of as being both alive and dead (until we look at it and only one condition remains.)

The Eastern symbol of Yin and Yang depicts this very well. Half the circle is black and half is white. In the larger black portion there is a small white circle. In the white portion there is a small circle of black.

This symbol can stand for male and female, good and evil, right and wrong or any other dual nature concept.

By this philosophy even the most reviled despotic dictator has a bit of "good", truth and redemption in him. Life and reality itself is described in these terms. The ME is by no means exempt from this symbolism.

Not every claimed ME is significant as part of the whole phenomenon. Some examples are mere faulty memory. Some are the results of fantasy in the minds of the claimant. Others are explained by wishful thinking. A few examples escape classification and remain inconclusive since the entire process is an exercise in trying to prove a negative.

Singular examples can be truly unexplained other than by considering the past to be actually fluid and changed mostly without anyone noticing.

In the book The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin in 1971 introduces George Orr who has "effective dreams" which alter reality. He claims the world was destroyed in 1998. He dreams it back into existence while dying in the rubble. See Wikipedia entry {en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven#Plot_summary} Much of the exotic claims people have made to explain the ME are very similar to Le Guin's book from 1971 and the movie version from 1984.

In order to get to the essential nature of the ME we must pass everything through a sieve to "separate the wheat from the chaff." Not all "evidence" holds equal value. For example, if Berenstein was the original spelling of the name of the fictional bear family there is negligible probability anyone would mistakenly see it as Berenstain and this would be a non-controversy. Likewise if the title had originally been "Sex In The City" no one would be claiming it to be "and the City." The controversy only arises when the original version was "odd" and claimants swear it was never that way. This observation itself casts doubt on a change ever having taken place.

Secondarily, evidence becomes tainted with manipulation. Any such evidence must be excluded even it it demonstrates the ME in more than a mind game. The examples just cannot be trusted.

Such is the VW logo with or without a division between the letters. Volkswagen never used or licensed a VW logo without the division line. This doesn't mean other companies didn't manufacture knock-off versions and omit the break. Also the photographs of supposed variant logos are all either manipulated forgeries or of poor exposure quality that a bright spot obscures the division. So far there is no "residue" photos which have been fully vetted that stand up to scrutiny.

Did you know you can still buy a classic WV Beetle from the model year 1984, 85, 86? You just can't license them for use in America. The last of its kind rolled off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico on July 30, 2003.

The same tainting of evidence applied to the JFK assassination limo. The claims people remember a 4-seat lime are from memories which are today 54 years old or are hearsay from listening to a parent or even a grandparent about "how they recall" what took place. Many photographic recreations and cinematic productions have been made over the years using props and actors available at the time. Photo ops have been created to accompany journalistic writing. And not to be excluded are the camera angles and partial vehicle shots which purport to be the short limo but leave out the front part of the vehicle.

The actual limo resides at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. It has been upgraded with a permanent hardtop, armor plating and a new engine grille. Yes it is a 3-row, 6-seat limo. None of the popular internet published limo pictures with allege a 4-seat limo survive the vetting process at an evidentiary level.

Many other of the popular ME examples are also tainted with knock-off products and international variations. Flinstones is one of those examples. If Febreze was today Febreeze, I suspect no one would be claiming they remember Febreze, per my earlier suggestion.

Now for Massive Geographic Differences.

If a logo were actually altered by an alleged time traveler that other than the time travel event itself it would be relatively easy to convince a graphic designer in a corporate product development department to make it Froot Loops because the cereal in fact contained no fruit. Besides, Froot Loops has a kind of unique symmetry that goes with the Toucan themed jingles.

A time traveler would have zero mechanisms to move South America 1000 miles east or Australia 100 miles north.

In order to substantiate movement in tectonic plates which float continents around the globe and have two realities we must enlist the concept that there are at least two quantum copies of Earth where the continents are in vastly different locations. We are supposed to assume the veracity of a person who claims he/she remembers the other version from when he/she was in elementary school (when one usually is exposed to Geography.) Interestingly John Tuzo Wilson first introduced the concept of Continental Drift in 1963. Before that time geophysicists could not wrap their heads around the idea that continents actually moved relative to each other. While they do indeed move. It takes millions of years to move a humanly noticeable distance.

This remembrance pre-supposes the person jumped from one quantum Universe to another. We are supposed to accept the notion of a fully formed quantum universe and the idea the claimant exists in both and can move seamlessly between them rather than they were not paying close attention to the teacher and the world maps in 5th Grade. I's be far more willing to accept their explanation of why South America moved 1000 miles if the vetting process of this person revealed a coherent and consistent alternate history which is not in conflict with their alternate geographic configuration.

All such claims of major geographic differences fail the vetting process, so far.

If logo changes and spelling differences are man-made retroactive changes to the past and are consistent with the ME, then geologic differences fail the ME test. Something else in at play including bad memory or outright deception.

Flip-flopping

The idea of Flip-flopping seems to be more of a device to establish credibility or one to convince ones-self of the claim. The failure of this phenomenon as an ME stems from the absolute locality of the Flip-flop. If something were changing Froot Loops boxes it would be happening everywhere all at once (or at least at the speed the change travels.) More than one person would see the differences and the transitions.

Unless several to many people observe a Flip-flop taking place it is more likely the flip-flop experience is a singular personal one. Something no one else can see because it is completely internal. Like a pain. No one else knows you have a one unless you tell them.

Wheat From Chaff

There is some wheat out there. We need to make a distinction. People allegedly dying years ago versus last month or not at all is a very weak example of the ME. It is far too easy and common for such reports to propagate around the Internet and never to be enshrined in ink on paper. The stark example is Nelson Mandela himself. There are multiple published exact dates when he supposedly died. While those publications could actually have published wrong information without malice or conspiracy to do so, his story stands out as an enigma.

And Now This

The indisputable characteristic embodied by the ME is that everyone is only who and what they remember. If you remember life events being a particular way, be prepared to either accept everyone else's take on it or be prepared to accept the inevitable blow-back. While you are trying to preserve your world view, so are they. The simple explanation is either you remember something wrong or something changed things after you experienced it. As with all other situations, chose for yourself what to believe.

Mandela Effect: Timeline Change vs Parallel Universe

Mandela Effect: Timeline Change v Parallel Universe

By Peter Wolfe

One of the big contentions of the ME is whether the observed differences are the result of a change in one timeline or as the result of a Quantum Universe shift. Both could yield the observed effects but there are some huge differences to consider. The first Law of ME, if you will, is multiple timelines and discrete universes must remain consistent with in themselves. For example one cannot merely say “internal combustion engines in MY timeline/parallel reality do not and never had cylinder heads.” One would have to explain how the engine worked under those geometrics or be disregarded as a person who doesn’t understand how engines work.

The Second Law of ME is that there is only one timeline in a universe at a time. It is the one you are in right now. How you got to this timeline is a matter of conjecture as well for all things you remember. Once you land in this timeline the one you came from no longer exists. Jumping from one timeline to another and back would be impossible since while you were absent from the “old” one it would have proceeded without you and would be a different one than you left. Indeed, “you can never go home again.”

The “Non-superposition Corollary” of the 2^nd Law asserts: when someone or something alters the timeline those changes will propagate forward in time making a range of alterations from negligible to massive. Similarly, most people will never notice. Again it is like turning left or turning right at an intersection, only one can ever be.

The Third Law of ME says when parallel or quantum universes intersect and a person transits the passage he/she places him/her self in the same universe as another version of him/her self. Since you would likely have a mostly same history, look around to find yourself and say hello. Ask questions to see how your life might have been. If the people around you when you arrive mostly recognize you the parallel world of your life will necessarily be very similar. On the other hand, if nobody recognizes you, you or haven’t seen you in a very long time the two of you lead vastly different lives. If they say, “I thought you died back in {some previous year},” feel happy you are more fortunate than the version of you who died.” It is probably NOT a good idea to pursue interrogation too far so as to not bum you out. Dying as a war hero might make you feel good, but if they say “auto-erotic asphyxiation” it could creep you out entirely.

The Fifth Law of the ME is what you see is the tip of the iceberg. While you are quibbling over the spelling of Febreze you might miss the point that Febreze never existed at all. It only ever existed in your memory. You might also miss that Al Gore was President for 26 months before something flipped the timeline and we got 8 years of George W., 9/11, two wars and a massive financial collapse instead. Whether you count that as good or bad is immaterial since nobody now remembers how the Gore Administration handled global affairs.

Mandela Effect: Simple to Exotic

Explanations for what the Mandela Effect is ranges from simple to exotic. At its simplest it is faulty memory experience by a relatively few individuals. For example one can count the number of people who assert that in their childhood Froot Loops was actually Fruit Loops in the hundreds to maybe a few thousand people. Statistically the number must be exceedingly small compared to the set of everyone who ever saw a box of the cereal. A few people go as far as claiming the box art changed recently and sometimes even as they watched it happen. While the claims of Fruit being the spelling and people claiming to have seen it in the store, nobody seems to have thought to buy the box and keep it as proof of their experience.

There are many other spelling, logo and grammar and punctuation examples to give, but they all lead to the exact same place: Either something changed the past or the claimants are self-reporting their memory fault. Memory faults are not necessarily a disability or critical malfunction. The way humans store memory is fraught with the opportunity to infill missing pieces and for personal preference to color what the memory consists of.

In some instances a memory trace is colored with an agenda that must be maintained. Such is the discrepancy in the size of the Presidential Limo of the JFK Assassination on November 22, 1963. The claimants of a 4-seat limo neglect the presence of Mrs. Connally. She necessarily must have been elsewhere if the limo did not have 6 seats. To account for that missing personage, the 4-seat claimants must infill their memories with alleged evidence that she indeed was elsewhere for some good reason. There are several alleged images of a 4-seat limo, but at critical review the photo fails to substantiate the 4-seat claim.

JFJ Limo at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit
used by permission from Robert Carlson

The following picture is purportedly shown a 4-seat limo but still shows the partition between the driver row and the middle row where Gov. Connally is sitting. Notice the missing steering wheel and driver if this is a 4-seat limo.

This photo is a non-evidentiary photo shot to accompany the magazine article. Notice the wilted flowers to suggest this is the limo but the total lack of blood splatter anywhere in the back seat.

These three photos suggest nothing of the Mandela Effect in this matter. Maybe some evidence still persists, but we have not yet seen any of it.

Timeline Alterations

A few people have become convinced that they are from an alternate timeline. They have slid into this reality from one where what they remember is what actually was the conditions and events of their earlier lives. They arrive here with a snapshot recollection of how it was in their world, but cannot fit it into a cohesive cause and effect timeline the remainder of us experience.

Some of them have visual memories of Australia being 1,000 miles further south. Some of them claim for them South America was 1,000 miles further west than it is in the reality most of us have ever known. While they have a strong emotional connection with their recollections of South America they all fail to mention that 1,000 miles would also have shifted the internationally recognized time zone layout of South America.

Every single mention of alternate continental placement on the globe can be attributed to flat map projection differences. How is it that a person can believe they came from an alternate Earth over the idea the cartographer was not very accurate? Just for the Flat Earth readers of this Post: If the Earth were indeed flat, the map makers would not have had to resort to so many different projections. One would do.

Earth Two

A couple of the followers of Mandela Effect strangeness have also cited the massive relocation of Earth from the Sagittarius Arm to the Orion Spur as an explanation for why they remember facts and figures which are otherwise dubious and not recognized by their peers. Whether the Earth and solar system was moved or whether it was replicated 10,000 light-years away is not germane. Somebody would have had to go to extreme limits to accomplish such a task to benefit “such poor little lambs as we.”

The assertion is the New Earth is not quite the same as the Old Earth. They make a few errors in their pre-move survey. Some people remember Old Earth while those who are now awake see the New Earth for what it is. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy discusses the summary destruction of Earth to make way for an Inter-galactic super highway. Afterwards the Galactic council must rebuild the Earth and repopulate with those people who were unjustly destroyed. They decide to make it a better place than before, somewhat like a Disneyland perfection.

I’d say the construction crew did not go nearly far enough to fix the ills of the Old Earth. I expect more than a return to “normal.”

Simulated Reality

I like the concept that we live in a simulated reality. If that is true then there is no “higher” level to go. We are just subroutines running in some supermassive computing system. Frank J. Tipler wrote about such a future of mankind in his book, The Physics of Immortality. At some point in the future we will be able to resurrect every person who ever was, including those who died as infants, or never really existed because the egg was not fertilized and carried to term. We would necessarily do that in a cyber environment due to the limitations of universe energy to support all the flesh and blood bodies. But then it would make no difference. If we are conscious beings with a real or imagined Free Will being “real” or simulated would be no different.

Issac Azimov posited the problem of Entropy in the short story, The Last Question. In that story all the stars were burning down and at some point there would be zero energy to power the continuation of mankind’s’ consciousness in the simulated world to which we were forced to move.

The Real Simulation

All science fiction aside and all conspiracy theories dispelled, we do exist in a simulated universe. Ponder this: We do not actually see a tree in the forest or a building on the street. What we see is only the light waves reflecting off their surfaces. That patterning of light is ALREADY A SIMULATION. Your entire eye is smaller than a chicken egg. The light sensitive surface inside is about the size of your thumbnail. It being so small doesn’t stop you from seeing the panorama of the Grand Canyon. The image on the thumbnail sized retina is actually upside-down. It is physically inside your skull (whether or not you believe our skeletons changed to add boney parts behind the eyes). You see it as though it was “out there”. Several miles of horizon image fits on the retina and in your head. Then later your brain can “resimulate” it again as you dream about seeing the Grand Canyon. Quite an amazing simulation if I do say. Each and every conscious mind is its own computer processing a shared database of “reality.”

Sounds work the same way.

The Takeaway

Everyone can have fun imagining what causes the phenomenon of memory not matching the current reality. Just don’t take it all too seriously or you may be relegated to the ranks of the goofy and eccentric.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

Keep pondering and speculating, the answers to your questions may yet to be revealed.