The Mandela Effect Might Provide An Extreme Case Of Memory

What purpose would there be for implanting false memories in a large percentage of the population? We can only speculate about both purpose and the method of such a procedure. As for changes in scriptures, an explanation often given by religious figures is who notice these changes is that there is someone or some entity causing these changes on purpose. Although he didn’t talk about the Bible, it turns out this explanation of someone making changes is closer to what Dick believed than I first gave it credit for. These changes can occur in the present or what we call the past, but since these entities live outside of linear time, we can see the repercussions across the timeline even if the change was made to the past. In Islam, there is a type of holy man called a hafiz, who memorizes the entire Koran word for word. Mirahmadi says that the reason for this is so that even if the written word of the Koran changes, the exact wording of the Koran can be preserved through the memory of all the hafizes.32 In a way, this is an old version of the modern idea of data duplication to prevent tampering, and presumes that the jinn cannot interfere with human memory. Why would someone intentionally change the holy scriptures of one or more major religion? And who would want it changed? Once again, we find ourselves in the realm of supernatural beings who might want to muck with the timeline from outside the timeline and we can only speculate as to possible motives. Note that an explanation of more than one timeline by itself doesn’t require a full multiverse, just two timelines with different parameters and small changes. If Timeline B is the consensus timeline, those who were part of timeline A would remember events differently from the rest of the world. Quantum mechanics has an interpretation that allows for multiple timelines across multiple parallel universes, with a new universe branching out each time a decision is made. This would allow for universes where each combination of the Mandela effect happens or doesn’t happen, in combination with each other effect.

Letting Go

In the multiverse case, just like in The Arrowverse, all possibilities already exist as separate universes. We just happen to be in the one where Mandela was alive until 2013 while the other ones still exist somewhere in the multiverse. There could be a universe where Mandela is alive, but the Bible is different, and on and on. But what could explain two people being in this timeline who have different memories of the past? I would argue that the weirdness of quantum mechanics doesn’t preclude multiple possible pasts, just as it doesn’t preclude multiple possible presents or multiple possible futures. The odd results of this experiment tell us that there are multiple possible pasts and one is selected when a measurement is made. Theoretically, if the multiverse does branch in this way, could the Mandela effect simply be about remembering one of the many universes? Within physics circles, one of the ways of creating such a doorway to another, parallel dimension is thought to be black holes. A Variety of Multiverses. Thus, as in any game, the parameters can be changed, and any scenario can be run multiple times. Each time a variable changes, it results in a number of ripples to the timeline, both small and large. Simulation, Automata, and Chaos. Should the Mandela Effect Be Dismissed Outright? If one person reports that they saw a giant sea creature, it is reasonable to dismiss the claim perhaps as a form of misidentification. However, when the number of people who have seen certain phenomena rises, it behooves us at least to look more seriously at what might be happening, rather than simply dismissing it outright.

You Haven't Done Nothing

It’s of no use to say you don’t believe in the Mandela effect. Different people have different memories of sometimes inconsequential details and sometimes consequential ones, including major events. Unfortunately, this is done by simply throwing away the inconvenient data and only concentrating on data that fits whatever theory the majority of scientists have agreed on. But if you look closely, you’ll see that science as it’s framed today doesn’t have the tools to really investigate mass sightings or other phenomena that are ephemeral and sporadic, being difficult to reproduce on demand in a laboratory setting. Most serious mainstream discussions of the Mandela effect include psychologists who dismiss the effect as simply a case of faulty memory. I believe the Mandela effect, if taken seriously, could also reveal something very interesting about the nature of time and the relationship of the past to the future. Some of the effects may in fact just be cases of faulty memory. There may also be other prosaic explanations. Just as Einstein’s theory of relativity only deviates from Newtonian mechanics at the extremes, yet still reveals new properties of how the universe works, the Mandela effect might provide an extreme case of memory. If you were to ask prominent scientists several hundred years ago about reports that people in the countryside were seeing rocks falling from the sky, they would quickly dismiss these as cases of hallucination or otherwise mistaken identity. Everyone, especially the majority of scientists, knew that rocks don’t exist in the sky, so how could they fall from the sky? If you were to ask a majority of physicists even fifty years ago whether they thought the universe was branching every nanosecond into parallel universes with each decision that was made, the idea would have sounded preposterous. The problem in these cases was very much with the cosmological model that was embraced by most scientists at the time.

You Cannot Hide

Fifty or a hundred years from now, might we come to realize that dismissing the Mandela effect out of hand was really because we had the wrong cosmological model all along? The first feature film about the effect was called The Mandela Effect. In the film, the main character is Brendan, a video game designer, who has lost his daughter, Sam.