Can Search Engines Find Inquiries from the Future?

[apodman]

If time travel to the past is possible, someone will do it.

If enough people travel to the past, someone will leave evidence.

If there is evidence, a thorough search will find it.

If a thorough search finds no evidence, the lack of evidence might lend support to the ideas that (1) time travel to the past is not possible or (2) we met our end before achieving it.

---

Sometimes the evidence is in the evidence. Sometimes the evidence is in the cover-up. Was it Watergate or Contact (actually I think it was both) with 18 minutes of recorded nothing? And I still think those JFK autopsy photos were touched up by an amateur. If tampering with an internet search database is suspected or hypothesized, find the evidence by going beyond the search logic level of your investigation - go to the medium where the data is stored and analyze your parity bits, checksums, and check characters to see if the totality of the data "doesn't add up". If our boys at the search factory stored their parity, checksum, and check character data separately from their search history database and kept it locked up, then the cleaners wouldn't be able to modify them.

[geckzilla]

Isn't it possible, or even very likely, that time travelers, even from our own species, could be so foreign to us that it would be very difficult for us to recognize them? Conversely, that could also make us and our technology quite foreign to them, though, not necessarily. Interactions could potentially be very difficult to recognize.

[The Code]

Maybe, Man Kind got annihilated long before we had chance to achieve this goal

[apodman]

Isn't it possible, or even very likely, that time travelers, even from our own species, could be so foreign to us that it would be very difficult for us to recognize them? Conversely, that could also make us and our technology quite foreign to them, though, not necessarily. Interactions could potentially be very difficult to recognize.

Here I have to side with Chris and cast a narrower net. We can only try to detect those we have a way of recognizing. If they go straight past the internet to grok our history at a molecular level, they are outside the scope and capabilities of our investigation.

[geckzilla]

But that shouldn't preclude you from casting similarly narrow nets rather than sticking to a single narrow net, should it? Oh well, I wasn't really contributing to the discussion so much as discounting the conclusion you came to in your previous post, apodman.

[apodman]

But that shouldn't preclude you from casting similarly narrow nets rather than sticking to a single narrow net, should it? Oh well, I wasn't really contributing to the discussion so much as discounting the conclusion you came to in your previous post, apodman.

I see. I was painting the situation in broad strokes, so plenty of discounting is in order.

[BMAONE23]

Well...I don't see the world changing much between now and 12-21-2012 when it all ends.

[BMAONE23]

If time travel to the past is possible, someone will do it.

If enough people travel to the past, someone will leave evidence.

If there is evidence, a thorough search will find it.

If a thorough search finds no evidence, the lack of evidence might lend support to the ideas that (1) time travel to the past is not possible or (2) we met our end before achieving it.

---

Sometimes the evidence is in the evidence. Sometimes the evidence is in the cover-up. Was it Watergate or Contact (actually I think it was both) with 18 minutes of recorded nothing? And I still think those JFK autopsy photos were touched up by an amateur. If tampering with an internet search database is suspected or hypothesized, find the evidence by going beyond the search logic level of your investigation - go to the medium where the data is stored and analyze your parity bits, checksums, and check characters to see if the totality of the data "doesn't add up". If our boys at the search factory stored their parity, checksum, and check character data separately from their search history database and kept it locked up, then the cleaners wouldn't be able to modify them.

Watergate had 18 minutes of erased tapes from the oval office.
Contact had 21 hours of recorded static on Ellie's head piece camera

[bystander]

You can't use google trends for anything before 2004. That's the earliest date search allowed.

[bystander]

"Michael Jackson's death"

The idea is that pop stars are actually quite international in their fame and might be of interest to future historians. For example Elvis Presley still maintains popularity. The problem with this search term is that it would also catch people speculating about when Michael Jackson might die for years before his actual death, or even previous untrue rumors of his death. So perhaps a search term centering on MJ's death could be better engineered. Any suggestions?

Michael Jackson's Memorial Service at Staples Center was a huge media event. Somebody studying pop culture would probably be interested in events like this.

[Gorkow]

Google Insights for Search is an advance beta version of Google trends. This allows for selecting categories you want to search in, example Entertainment > Music > pop & Rock. then you search for "michael jackson funeral", which is the following link http://www.google.com/insights/search/# ... ral&cmpt=q

But sorry to say no early spikes in the search records. note the data is normalized and rounded, so a small early spike would not be noticeable since it would be rounded to 0. Taking that into account i set my search date from 2004 to 2008 but found no results.

Gorkow

[RJN]

It would be interesting to know if there were even single searches for "pre-knowledge" type search terms. Google goes not give any numbers unless one logs into Google, which I haven't done in quite some time. I do wonder if they can record a single search.

In other news, I found out that the McNaught that discovered the Comet McNaught, "C/2006 P1", the "Great Comet of 2007", actually has discovered many other comets as well, not just Comet McNaught-Russell. I think he has discovered 25 comets or so dating back to 1987. These are given in his Wikipedia listing here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._McNaught . So what's good for McNaught is bad for creating good search terms with "Comet McNaught" in them. Still, there might be a good search term in there someplace.

I like Gorkow's "Michael Jackson's funeral" as a MJ, pre-knowledge related search term. I think it is better than other MJ-motived search terms that I have suggested previously.

- RJN

[apodman]

I know we techies are all focused on the internet, but for perspective and parallel logic consider the case of Antarctica. The existence of Antarctica was proposed 2000 years ago. Antarctica commonly appeared on maps 400 years ago. Antarctica was first sighted by modern humans in 1820. Maps prior to 1820 showed Antarctica larger than the real Antarctica and without its true shape, but what if we went through all the pre-1820 maps and found an accurate representation of the continent? I would consider prior visits by neo-modern humans who handed down accurate maps to be so unlikely a possibility that I would dismiss it out of hand. For convenience I'm also eliminating lucky guesses. So, in the case of such an anachronistic map, I would consider strongly that an outsider provided the information or made the map. That pretty much leaves ETs and time travelers, take your pick.

In the case of a discovery, we must look for details (not just references) prior to discovery: not "Antarctica exists," but "Antarctica is this size and shape." In the case of an event, we must look for details (not just references) prior to the event: not "Paul is dead," but "Paul McCartney died June 18, 2043 on his 101st birthday." For internet searches, the details must have been stated (cryptically and shortly) implicitly in the form of a question, adding two layers (decrypt and expand into a question, transform the question to or match it with a statement) of logic to our analysis. Unknown guiding principles for our analysis may remain to be found in the logical difference (or lack thereof) between an event and a discovery, but this is left to the student as an exercise. (Trivially, prematurely published details of an event - as opposed to prematurely published details of a discovery - do eliminate ETs from the list of suspects unless they are also time travelers. So there are some differences; it just remains to be seen if any of them are important or useful.)

[Chris Peterson]

In the case of a discovery, we must look for details (not just references) prior to discovery: not "Antarctica exists," but "Antarctica is this size and shape." In the case of an event, we must look for details (not just references) prior to the event: not "Paul is dead," but "Paul McCartney died June 18, 2043 on his 101st birthday."...

I think the flaw here is in expecting any sort of detail. Time travelers aren't going to be stupid. In fact, I think we should assume that they would be well trained and very careful. There is no reason to find any sort of historical fact in the search record before it happens.

A future historian already knows when Paul McCartney died, or when McNaught discovered his Great Comet. He has no reason to mention those things before they happened. (Excuse me if my tenses get a little disordered... time travel has a way of doing that.)

The question we have to ask ourselves is what sort of thing would a future historian be interested in when investigating his past? Thus, my 9/11 example: I would not expect anything in advance of the event referencing it at all. What I would expect would be queries intended to tease out who might have been aware of it beforehand. We would be looking for a statistically significant increase in specific queries. But really, I think that our historian isn't going to find the search engines themselves of much use, but will prefer the same database we're considering: the query history database of the various search engines. The problem here is that these aren't time sensitive: a historian can get what he needs after an event, just like we're looking at doing.

We need to do one of two things- either identify some useful information that a historian would be able to glean from search engines only before an interesting event, or devise a meta-query approach: look closely not at the search history database, but at the queries made against the search history database.

[craterchains]

Can Search Engines Find Inquiries from the Future?

My answer is NO!

Why can I, or would I, just simply state NO?
Time travel would be the "ULTIMATE WEAPON" in the hands of anyone that could do it.

At the present time, (pardon the pun), the study of time travel is only, as RJN stated "Yes, I consider this mostly entertainment. Yes, I would be interested in your thoughts."

Personally I find such ideas, as that of time travel, to be extremely dangerous and not the least bit "entertaining" as some may think of it. On the other hand why waste our time on such specious discussions? Just for entertainment?!?!

[SsDd]

I would approach this problem by putting myself in the shoes of a Time Traveller. If I could go back in time, assuming I would give the greater good of humanity more importance that changing events of my personal past, I would try to inform and "fore-warn" people of events that would significantly alter their "future". This is assuming, I cannot "physically" influence or alter the events. For example, I will try to to inform people of the 9/11 attacks by writing articles or appearing on Glenn Beck. Or not. This again is assuming that the events of 9/11 were not engineered by future time travellers for some greater good(as bad as it sounds).

At any case, I will not be typing into google "9/11". Thus, using google trends to look for evidence of time travellers, is not very useful, because Google Trends only stores search terms that people type into the google search engine. However, search engine can be used for looking up "hot-spots" or a flurry of activity with regards to ideas, theories of phenomenon as opposed to "events".

In order to establish a criteria to identify and isolate Time Travellers, I stick to my hypothesis that a Time Traveller would use his abilities to "fore-warn" or try to influence the minds of people to behave in a certain way, in order to change the course of "future" time, presumably for the greater good. I would go back time, and try to educate the people of our past, the need to focus on green energy. Or the dangers of unregulated global financial markets. Therefore, looking for "spikes" or "jumps" in the stream of global social consciousness might lead to "evidence" of Time Travellers?

Now, if this critera is true, then history is replete with "evidence" of giant jumps in scientific, social and cultural consciousness. All ancient relegions and beliefs systems, have a single "messenger of infinite wisdom", imparting information, making "revelations", "miraculously" curing sick and needy, passing down "commandments" that people had to adhere to, in order to escape a "great war". None of that stuff would be difficult for a Time Traveller who went back from the present age. For a serious Time Traveller researcher, the parallels in the origin of these different belief systems originating in differetn parts of the world. at different periods of time, should raise a lot of flags in his/her mind.

On a side note,(or maybe not), the subject of Dragons. Dragons are ancient mythological creatures that find a place in a lot of different cultures, at different intervals of time. The greek dragons appear around 300 AD, the welsh and scandinavian ones around 7 BC. Chinesse dragons appear to be at least 3000 years old. Since no evidence of fire breathing monsters has yet been un-earthed, can it be safe to assume that this can be construed as evidence of time travellers? Or am I streching it a bit too far?


Abhi

[SsDd]

Building on the same theme, between the years 1870-1890 mankind "saw the invention of electric light, alternating current, the telephone, automobile, steam turbine, gas turbine, water heater, transformer, arc welding, phonograph and seismograph; development of vaccination and surgical techniques; Boltzmann’s development of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; production of radio waves" :- listverse.com

Does it qualify as a "hotspot"?

[craterchains]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time

Time is a component of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects.

Time has no valid physicality, it is only an mutually agreed upon measurement of duration.

Time travel is nothing more than a grasping at straws by the governments for the ultimate weapon. A waste of the tax payers money.

[Chris Peterson]

Time has no valid physicality, it is only an mutually agreed upon measurement of duration.

Time is one of the dimensions of spacetime. It is as easy to imagine traveling in that direction as in any of the three spatial dimensions. And while there are plenty of solid arguments against time travel, they tend more toward logic and philosophy than science. The reality is that most of our current theory doesn't exclude time travel as a possibility.

Thus, the proposal to design an experiment that might detect traces of information from the future contaminating the past. While not likely to be fruitful, that doesn't mean the experiment is useless, or a waste of time.

[craterchains]

Well, Chris, I must agree,

"It is as easy to imagine traveling in that direction as in any of the three spatial dimensions."

the only time traveling that will be done is with ones "imagination". While it remains a physicality and fact that I can travel in the other three.

Spacetime is only an unfounded and an unproved theory.

As nobody seems to want to discuss the horrific possibility, in the imagining of time travel, of this being weaponized, this will be my last post in this thread. Unless it is approved by RJN or the moderators to continue along the lines of what the true dangers of such a weapon as time travel would be. Discussion of such a mater would also include the "cons" of such a development.

On the other hand I can provide the evidence you seek, as my search of the web has turned up evidence of this that is being asked,

"Can Search Engines Find Inquiries from the Future?"

But, it does not involve time travel.

[Chris Peterson]

Spacetime is only an unfounded and an unproved theory.

Of course, there's no such thing as a proven theory. But spacetime is fundamental to most modern physics, and its existence at the core of the Universe's structure is massively supported by multiple lines of evidence. Whether you personally like it or not isn't really at issue; nearly every physicist takes its existence for granted, and any discussions on this forum are also likely to treat it as a given.

As nobody seems to want to discuss the horrific possibility, in the imagining of time travel, of this being weaponized, this will be my last post in this thread. Unless it is approved by RJN or the moderators to continue along the lines of what the true dangers of such a weapon as time travel would be. Discussion of such a mater would also include the "cons" of such a development.

I don't see your point. Nobody is proposing developing a mechanism for time travel. The proposal is to develop a method for detecting it. Calling that dangerous is like saying a Geiger counter is dangerous because nuclear technology can be weaponized.

[craterchains]

Sorry, with out "permission" to continue this line of reasoning, I refrain from responding. For fear of "banning".

[Orca]

Chris, try convincing him that the speed of light can't be reached or passed by objects with rest mass.



If you'd like a challenge, anyway.

[RJN]

Yes, let's try to keep focus here and do the best we can to try to detect pre-knowledge. I don't know how to search for dragons, but I can check search engines for pre-knowledge inquiries. Let's see if we can come up with more and better search terms that might isolste pre-knowledge inquiries. - RJN

[makc]

I don't know how to search for dragons

shame on you