Nostradamus and the String Theory

[Anonymous]

Rather than trying to give you a rant about something I'm not sure of I'll now post a bunch of clues I got and see where I made mistakes and where I'm right. If it interests you this could get down to a nice conclusion. So let's begin:

A while ago I heard a bit about the prophecies of Nostradamus. He predicted three warlords. It has been said that one of them was Napoleon, another one was Hitler, and the third one, MUBAS, has yet to announce himself. Some people claim all Nostradamus has said has been formulated in a way that guarantees a valid interpretation, the claim prophecies to be false.
A time before that I heard about the prophecies of Nostradamus I read a part out of Hesiod's Works and Days. For your information, Hesiod was a writer in Ancient Greece. I noticed that he, even before the birth of Christ, predicted "a black death", quite odd as it's the exact term used today. But that is not everything he predicted. Hesiod claimed there were four races, the third one got to cope with the Bubonic Plague, so we have to be the fourth race. The fourth race, he said, was suffering from a lack of morals and that would lead to the end. The strange thing is that it is somewhat true and it fits with Nostradamus' predictions.

Now I'd like to jump to a whole different subject: Physics. I bet all of you know the first three dimensions and most of you should know the fourth dimension is time. Further dimensions do not really need explaination for what I'm going to tell know.
A few days ago I've been searching for the answer to what the String Theory is in a nutshell. It was somewhere explained like this: There are acrobat and a flea walking on a rope. The acrobat knows one dimension, back and forth, but the flea has one dimension more, he can move around the rope.
My conclusion is that the flea can somehow see in more dimension more than the acrobat. This is the part that is the weirdest to me, as that explaination seems to have lost a lot of truth to me.

So if it's true, then if we, the average human, can see in three dimensions, can it be that there are a few persons like Nostradamus and Hesiod that can actually see in four dimensions and thus can see into the future?

 

[Hunlord]

A few days ago I've been searching for the answer to what the String Theory is in a nutshell. It was somewhere explained like this: There are acrobat and a flea walking on a rope. The acrobat knows one dimension, back and forth, but the flea has one dimension more, he can move around the rope.
My conclusion is that the flea can somehow see in more dimension more than the acrobat. This is the part that is the weirdest to me, as that explaination seems to have lost a lot of truth to me

The flea has another dimension because it is smaller, and therefore can walk from side to side. What are you saying, that because the flea is smaller, it can see another dimension or something? The acrobat and the flea can see the exact same thing, in the same dimensions, the only difference is size.

As for the rest, I have no idea...

 

[Anonymous]

The flea has another dimension because it is smaller, and therefore can walk from side to side. What are you saying, that because the flea is smaller, it can see another dimension or something? The acrobat and the flea can see the exact same thing, in the same dimensions, the only difference is size.

As for the rest, I have no idea...

Yes, because the flea is smaller it can walk around the rope. This is not the real string theory, it's just some story someone made up to explain it in an easy way. It does not mean that because something is smaller it can see more dimensions in reality or something like that. I only seem to have the feeling that this metaphor is not really accurate and that I'm missing out on a lot of crucial information.

 

[Albie]

So you see a rope, you are either the acrobat or the flea. The acrobat can see only back and forward. The flea, been much smaller can see back and forward and side to side. Yet, as an observer, I put the acrobat at ten feet away from me and the flea as between just under and just over 10 feet away (by virtue of micrometers) - the flea doing his thing at 16:10, the acrobat at 16:00. So I see all four dimensions.

Am I been to simplistic here to see all four dimensions?

 

[Anonymous]

If you'd be two-dimensional then you'd only be able to see length and width, without depth. I assume we are three-dimensional, we can observe length, width and depth, but we can't actually see and comprehend time.

I'm not really good at explaining things or I might be missing the point. If you'd like to get some good explaination you can try and look the flash movie on http://www.tenthdimension.com/.

 

[Deano]

String theory is some physicists’ "solution" to try and come up with a theory of everything. This goes heavily into relativity and space-time and tries to unify a bunch of stuff I don't fully understand under one umbrella. The theory claims that there are actually 9, 10 or maybe 11 dimensions that humans cannot experience (actually we experience the first 4 of course); but the culmination of the others lead to parallel universes where anything and everything can happen.... the laws of physics are totally different in these worlds.

To stay to the point, if Nostradamus and other prophets can somehow perceive one or more of these additional dimensions then it could be that they have become privy to some information that other mortals are completely unable to obtain.

 

[Anonymous]

A time before that I heard about the prophecies of Nostradamus I read a part out of Hesiod's Works and Days. For your information, Hesiod was a writer in Ancient Greece. I noticed that he, even before the birth of Christ, predicted "a black death", quite odd as it's the exact term used today. But that is not everything he predicted. Hesiod claimed there were four races, the third one got to cope with the Bubonic Plague, so we have to be the fourth race. The fourth race, he said, was suffering from a lack of morals and that would lead to the end. The strange thing is that it is somewhat true and it fits with Nostradamus' predictions.

The Black Death of 1348 was not the only apocalytpic plague epidemic in Europe. Before that, there were a few, most notably in ~180 and ~540 which were just as disastrous, with the former one wiping out a quarter of the population of the Roman Empire, including its emperor (Marcus Aurelius). Plagues were nothing uncommon to the contemporaries of Hesiod, so predicting such a disaster in a growing population is not really a feat. Think of all the movies of our times that play with such things; one day, perhaps, somebody will call them prophetic...

 

[IronDuke]

This is along the same lines as Richard Dawkins' ideas concerning "the mother of all veils."
He likens the universe to a giant veil (like women in Saudi Arabia wear), and the small opening for the eyes is the so-called "middle world" in which humans humans evolved and exist. We can really only comprehend the universe as it exists on our level (Newtonian physics).

The part of the veil above the eyes is the world where Newtonian physics and other "laws" we have start to break down, and the Einsteinian rules take over - the atomic world when neutrons have no mass, and other strange things which seem impossible to us at first.

The part below the eyes is MUCH large and MUCH MUCH stranger, and it's doubtful anyone can ever comprehend much of it. Perhaps at some point in this level, time is transcendant, and the future is the past is the present? Who knows?
Dawkins famous line sums it up: "The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we CAN suppose."

As for Nostradamus, I think it's pretty stupid to try to find truth in his "prophecies." He made so many thousands of them, written in so cryptic language that it's possible to find a reference to just anout anything you want in them. What criteria do we use to decide which ones are genuine and which are BS? How do we know that X plague or X war monger is the one to which he was referring? It's the same as trying to find predictions or rules in the Bible - it's so long and cryptic that you can read ANYTHING YOU WANT into it.

 

[SinisterMinisterX]

I've read about the "four race" theory before. While it's true that humans are supposed to be the third race, we aren't also the fourth. "Race" in this nutjob theory is more like our word "species". The first two races were the Atlanteans and the Hyperboreans. I think the Atlanteans were supposed to be first, but I might be remembering it wrong. But that shows how crazy you have to be to believe that crap - you have to believe in both Atlantis and the hollow earth theory.

Time may be the 4th dimension, but it's not like the others. It's one-way. Furthermore, you passage through it is mostly not under your control. So using an analogy about spatial dimensions to ask questions about time will only lead to misleading answers. There aren't enough similarities for the analogy to be valid.

 

[Anonymous]

I've read about the "four race" theory before. While it's true that humans are supposed to be the third race, we aren't also the fourth. "Race" in this nutjob theory is more like our word "species". The first two races were the Atlanteans and the Hyperboreans. I think the Atlanteans were supposed to be first, but I might be remembering it wrong. But that shows how crazy you have to be to believe that crap - you have to believe in both Atlantis and the hollow earth theory.

Time may be the 4th dimension, but it's not like the others. It's one-way. Furthermore, you passage through it is mostly not under your control. So using an analogy about spatial dimensions to ask questions about time will only lead to misleading answers. There aren't enough similarities for the analogy to be valid.

About the four race thing, it's not exactly a theory. Hesiod did not claim anything, he only told a story which could be true. Though I can't remember about the first race being Atlantis, I doubt that the second race is linked to the hollow earth theory. The hollow earth theory was made up in the 20th Century, in the time of Hesiod people didn't even have complete world maps. Add to that that Hesiod, being a normal human, called himself of a different race than the one we are in now according to him. I don't think we're having the same thing in mind.

Regarding the dimensions. I get out of that that you're saying that you can't compare the 1st dimension to the 4th dimension because the 4th dimension is linear and the 1st dimension is not. Then if we don't know much of it, isn't it wrong to dismiss theories that we're not certain of? A. says it might be possible for some people to look into more dimensions, into the future, then if B. says that isn't true because we don't know the exact functionings of the dimensions then B. is actually wrong. It doesn't rule out the possibility.
That's why I made this thread, I wanted to know if looking into different times is possible because most of the time it's said that it's not plausible. Of course you can throw Flying Spaghetti Monsters around, but I'm agnostic so that's alright with me.

 

[Onhell]

The Black Death of 1348 was not the only apocalytpic plague epidemic in Europe. Before that, there were a few, most notably in ~180 and ~540 which were just as disastrous, with the former one wiping out a quarter of the population of the Roman Empire, including its emperor (Marcus Aurelius). Plagues were nothing uncommon to the contemporaries of Hesiod, so predicting such a disaster in a growing population is not really a feat. Think of all the movies of our times that play with such things; one day, perhaps, somebody will call them prophetic...

I was watching deep impact this weekend again after many years on the tv... A black president? a meteor hitting the earth? Prophecy? I say "Yes!"

 

[Anonymous]

that makes a ton of sense.  so if the flea can see more than us, than the same logic can apply to some gifted humans.  we see the three dimensions, of course, length width, and height/depth.  but perhaps, like what you said, nostradamus(spelling?), hesion, and other prophets may have had this fourth dimension, OR MAYBE THEY JUST KNEW HOW TO TAP IT.  maybe the key is finding out how to tap this 4th dimension, maybe it was something they figured out through hours of serious meditation.  for all we know, any average joe could tap this, its just a matter of stumbling upon or unlocking it.

 

[Anonymous]

Indeed, that's what I was wondering, but don't jump to conclusions. I've asked if it might be plausible, I'm not yet a scientist so I can't give any answers. I'll ask my teacher Physics/Chemistry; he has studied Physics, Chemistry, Theology, Philosophy and can speak Italian... I don't think he'll be pissed off by that kind of questions and I bet he can explain it to me.

 

[Raven]

The whole concept of String Theory is purely theoretical...because if such dimensions exist, then there is no feasible way for us to prove their existence, being of a lower dimension.  How do we know that there are no more dimensions after the tenth?  Perhaps we're so primitive that we can't even begin to guess at an 11th dimension.  Similarly, there is no real way to prove that one person can experience the fourth dimension in any more than a transient sense, as if such people do exist, the only way for them to prove their ability to us would be for them to prophesy something, which would be discounted as coincidence.  At any rate, it's an interesting thought, but far too advanced for our science to be able to attempt to comprehend...and if string theory is correct, then there is no real point in us trying, until we evolve to some higher state of being.

On a similar note...what is at the end of the universe?

 

[Albie]

I did view the link you provided to explain the "tenth dimension", but this is really all just theory. What we do now is that there is a position for every thing (living or not) and this can be plotted in 4 dimensions - pretty much the way a global positioning device would do so - distance from, then to the right or left, then up or down and finally the time of the objects position, all in relation to the observer (as I stated in my original post). And as SMX has pointed out, time is only of one way - forward. To suggest that one can see both back and forth of this dimension is totally unproven - and whether it is plausible for humans to see this or not, is also just supposition.

However, some of the greatest scientist of years gone by have indeed put forward a "theory" that was not taken seriously at the time - until it was proven.

 

[Anonymous]

About the post of Raven. Of course it's still guessing and I'm not trying to say it's all true. But I'd like you all to know that when a person predicts the London burning in 1666 in that exact year, the rampaging of Napoleon (by the name of Napolonoi), and the genocide of Hitler (By the name of Hister, the river where he grew up), then it shouldn't be discarded like rubbish because like Raven said: knowing it all doesn't lie in out potential.

If we know practically nothing, why do we deny something that has proven itself to make sense?

 

[Anonymous]

About the post of Raven. Of course it's still guessing and I'm not trying to say it's all true. But I'd like you all to know that when a person predicts the London burning in 1666 in that exact year, the rampaging of Napoleon (by the name of Napolonoi), and the genocide of Hitler (By the name of Hister, the river where he grew up), then it shouldn't be discarded like rubbish because like Raven said: knowing it all doesn't lie in out potential.

May I ask you for the exact quotes of your examples?

 

[Anonymous]

I can't give you exact quotes, you have to ask some hippy who decided to make a documentary on Nostradamus. If he was lying about the Hister tell me, you're the Historian around here. If you're asking about the Nostradamus quotes, I've never read Nostradamus, I'm not really good at French, but I assume that someone who makes a documentary isn't talking bollocks.

I've found a website that covers some quotes from what I think are reliable sources. If Nostradamus did really write that down ages ago then I really don't see how people can get away saying he's fake. Anyway, here's the link:
http://boisdarc.tamu-commerce.edu/www/w/willmc/nostra.htm

 

[Albie]

and the genocide of Hitler (By the name of Hister, the river where he grew up),

This always reminds me of a quote from a Mike Leigh film - Naked - where one of the characters claims that when people read or view a "premonition" that is seemingly accepted, they shape their history around it. Rather than accept it may be just a stab in the dark.

Do you believe in self-fulfilling prophecy?

Eh?

You know, like Nostradamus. He was, like, this 16th-century astrologer... and he wrote in one of his quatrains that this goon called Hister would invade Poland. So Hitler reads that and thinks, "Hister, Hitler. Must mean me," .............and invades Poland.

 

[Anonymous]

I can't give you exact quotes,

I thought so.

If you're asking about the Nostradamus quotes, I've never read Nostradamus, I'm not really good at French, but I assume that someone who makes a documentary isn't talking bollocks.

Nostradamus has been translated numerous times. As for the documentary, I've seen dozens that talked pure bollocks.

I have personally never found any edition of Nostradamus' work that was not pre-interpreted by the editor. The editors have always selected some verses of Nostradamus and put them out of context, giving their own explanations to it. Usually, they have been sorted into chapters like "Nostradamus about Napoleon", "Nostradamus about WWI", "Nostradamus About WWII" etc. Of course, all those verses made sense in this interpretation, but they would also make sense in various others. Most are so vague that they are almost certain to "come true" in some way. And then, there are of course some verses which are not so vague and still seem to describe things in detail. Well, I'll be damned, if I ever get my hands on an unedited version of Nostradamus' work, I bet I'll find a good number of predictions that are quite precise and that can't be interpreted in any way at all. Most people who like to present Nostradamus as the greatest of prophets like to pick out a few stunningly accurate 'predictions' and leave the rest in the dark.
One particular prediction that I remember had a lot of people wait for something to happen a couple of years ago was the following one (quoted from the website you linked to):

In the year 1999 and seven months
From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
He will bring back to life the King of the Mongols;
Before and after war reigns.

What happened? N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Oh yeah, one more thing: The river Hitler grew up by was the Inn, not the Hister. There is a tired attempt at explaining that "Hister" is a bastardisation of "Ister", itself a bastardisation of "Istros", which is the ancient Greek name for the Danube, which again is the river the Inn flows into at some point, but that's just a couple of corners too much for an otherwise so clear prophecy.