He has predicted a lot of important events already and most, if not all of them came true. One of the most significant predictions he made was the death of Princess Diana. The events that took place seemed to match his then predictions. His prediction about the end of the world supposed to be in the year 2000 didn't happen though. But what if he just miscalculated the date? There have been many talks about Nostradamus being a time traveller. Do you think he is indeed one?
Nostradamus: Is He A Time Traveller?
- Thread starter gracer
- Start date
The biggest problem with Nostradamus is that so many of his prophecies are attributed after the fact. The facts will seem to line up, it seems almost assured that it's true, but it is just as easy to tie his predictions to events that happened in or around his era. When you go looking for connections, you'll find them even when they aren't there, rather like seeing a face in your toast or shapes in the clouds.
I think he was onto something, because if nothing else he predicted the general arc of history but I sincerely doubt he was a time traveler. Not that I don't want him to be, it just seems unlikely.
I think he was onto something, because if nothing else he predicted the general arc of history but I sincerely doubt he was a time traveler. Not that I don't want him to be, it just seems unlikely.
He did not make accurate prophecies, he made vague references to events. The world is huge with billions of people and history is long, just with pure statistics and probability, everything he said will eventually come true. Most of his predictions involved symbolism like animals or plants.. the thing is, if you substitute an animal in one of his prophesies with a different animal, you can just as easily find where that new prophecy was fulfilled.And any prophecy you can´t find a reference to you just say ´oh, that must happen in the future´..
mr_paradox
Chrono Cadet
Exactly. I will make a prediction that is guaranteed to come true. You will suffer three bad things in the near future. Surround my prediction with vague references and you are in business. Someone like Tesla or Turing might have been time travelers. They saw how technology would be used in the future. Turing saw computers being used to mimic humans back in the time when computers where just huge adding machines per say.Men who made/predicted futuristic inventions complete with diagrams of how these devices would operate might have been time travelers. Leonardo Davinci comes to mind.
At first I was really amazed by how his prophecies seemed to match certain events. I tell you, I was one of those people who was a bit afraid of the Y2K end of the world prophecy. Good thing it was all just a plain prophecy at all. That was the time I finally began to doubt Nostradamus' visions.
mr_paradox
Chrono Cadet
It is a variant of cold reading, basically you make general statements and then wrap them in smoke and mirrors. You have a scar on one of your legs, when you where young you where doing something your mother told you not to do. You fell down and scrapped your knee.You will make a trip across a large body of water that will change your life.These are all general statements, but when done properly can seem profound. We all have gotten sucked into believing these things, including myself. It is human nature.
Cold reading is the exact word, but it's even easier than that as Big Nosty doesn't have to sit across from you, looking you in the eye as he fondles the $20 bill you just laid on the table.It doesn't matter who makes the connections in his prophecies, none at all. I suppose a dedicated scholar could tie his prophecies to a time period in ancient Egypt if they wanted to, just as some Facebook sleuth will time them to some major event two years from now. All he had to do was say "Gonna be a war. A big war, and they'll cross a lot of distance...no, a river! They'll cross a river and win!"
But it wasn't hard to predict, either. Encyclopedias have been around since books could be printed, and even since somebody got the bright idea to pay the weird guy to sit at a desk all day and scribble those word things on vellum.It's human nature (and by extension, alien nature) to categorize things for easy access. An encyclopedia that you could take anywhere, and was written by the Hitchiker's themselves was Adam's goal. It's fair to say that Wikipedia was more likely inspired by his vision, rather than predicted by it. Without shows like Star Trek, we wouldn't have had a generation of kids look at the communicator and say "I WANT THAT!" and then build their own.
mr_paradox
Chrono Cadet
Probably he could do that. The guy was ahead of his time. He was an apocathy/doctor. 500 years ago the line between being a doctor and quackery was pretty narrow. He came from pretty humble beginnings, and somewhere along the line he crossed over into the prophecy business. He first published an almanac, then he figured out he could publish one prophecy book and then repeatedly sell it. Obviously he did pretty well because when he died his estate was worth the equivalent of $300,000.Fortune telling is an art and a bit of a con. That doesn't mean I am not open to the possibily, but the people who actually have the ability probably are rather quiet and ignored.
I'm not sure the "internet", as we now refer to it, was ever a secret.1962
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