Time Travel Through Context

We often think of time as a line on a 2D plane, linear because we portray it as traveling forward or backward. Our only limitation is technology... in science fiction or science magazines, that is. All we need is for one genius to build the right technology and break this timeless barrier.

But I think about time differently. I believe that merely representing it on a 2D platform makes it lose all its essence. Time travel is possible, but only in a form that differs from conventional fiction. Let's look at examples.

Before you clicked on this website, you had a thought in your head. This thought was known by you and you only. For me to know your thoughts, you'd have to tell me what it is. What if I told you that I know exactly what you were thinking before you even say it? You'd be impressed, right?

In a linear time model, here's how I could tell what you were thinking:

1. You have a thought.
2. I ask you what you're thinking.
3. You tell me.
4. I travel back in time, right before the second step.
5. Then I tell you what you're thinking about.

This can be accomplished through time travel. But what if I can figure out what you're thinking without using time travel technology? Would it still count as time travel?

I like to tell people I travel through time, but only after I do something that seems impossible at first. Just a few days ago, I was with my brother and sister watching YouTube on the big screen. Suddenly my sister asked:

Sister: Have you seen the...
Me: The live first-person shooter game video.

She couldn't believe I completed her sentence without having any context. Sometimes she'll say "Oh my God..." and I'll complete her sentence with exactly what she was going to say. My secret is very simple: I have invented a time machine. I can't predict what people will say, but I can go back in time and simply repeat what they "said" in the future, and I sound like a genius.

Let me explain how I knew she was going to talk about the live first-person shooter video:

First, for the past six months, she had been working on a video game in Unity. She watched tutorials, read blog posts, and constantly followed projects on Kickstarter. The chances of her seeing that video on YouTube were pretty high. Even her game had a first-person camera.

Now, how did I know she was going to talk about that at that exact time? Very simple. Right when I was scrolling through YouTube, there was a video that looked like a first-person shooter game, and there was an Oculus headset next to it. This immediately reminded me of that particular video. All three of us were thinking about the exact same thing. So when she started her sentence, even though she didn't use any context words, I was able to guess predict what she was going to say.

Note that this all happens at a subconscious level. This is YouTube running arbitrary code in our heads.

Not very impressive now, is it? In fact, everyone has these experiences all the time, and no one sees them as anything special. Yet we are predicting and affecting the future without traveling through time.

Now imagine scaling this idea. Imagine you know everything a person goes through. Everything. In the right context, you'll be able to predict everything this person does. By studying their past, you can determine their thoughts all the time. Here's something that happened to me a few years ago.

I had watched a Mexican show on YouTube for a few months. Let's call it a soap opera for now. A month later, I was chatting with a friend in Mexico and mentioned the show. She mentioned another Brazilian show she liked. This conversation was happening on WhatsApp. The moment I opened Google on my desktop machine, all I had to do was type two characters in the search bar and Google completed it with the name of the show she was talking about.

There are a few ways Google could have known that:

1. It monitors all my conversations even in other apps. Although this could be possible, I don't think Google would do that.
2. It waited for me to type the name of the whole show, saved it, traveled back through time, then presented it to me before I typed.
3. It simply knew the context of my search.

The third method is probably correct. I don't know how Google's algorithm works, but I imagine that for it to be their principal product, they must pour a considerable amount of money into it. And it has to be a very sophisticated engine that takes many things into consideration for every single character you type.

Now how did Google know the context of my search? Not too complicated in theory (though the infrastructure is very complicated).

1. I had searched for Mexican soap operas before, so that was in my search history already.
2. I had watched all these videos on YouTube that were in foreign languages.
3. Soap operas get their name from the fact that there were soap and cleaning product commercials around that time of day when the shows were playing, meaning morning or early afternoon (that's when I did my search).
4. I was searching from home, and Google has my home and work information.
5. Predicting the wrong thing costs them nothing.

So before I typed a single character in the search bar, Google already had a context in mind. It was 1 PM, I was home, I was on the machine on which I streamed my shows to the TV. My searches were filtered before I typed a single thing. Now add to that the things other people who are in the same context as me have typed in the past, and they can automatically open the wiki page for me when I launch the browser. I won't even complain.

So it's either that, or they traveled through time.

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"Understanding context is the equivalent of time travel without the overhead of building a machine."

An important factor here is the cost of a mistake. If I typed three characters and Google suggested things I don't care about, I'll simply continue typing and hope to find what I'm searching for.

If I completed my sister's sentence with a wrong prediction, she would say "not that" and continue as if nothing happened.

In movies, the point of time travel is to make better-informed decisions that will affect the course of events. The same thing can be done by knowing the right context of events. If I called in sick on September 1st, 2015, my employer might believe that I was sick. But a computer that understands the context of that date through my perspective knows that I was in line waiting to get my hands on the latest Metal Gear.

By the way, you were thinking of time travel before you clicked on this link.

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