Scrutinizing the Mandela Effect: The Mechanics and Implications

There has been thread after thread on the so called, Mandela Effect. Filled to the brim with cited effects and residual evidence. As far as I have seen, there is never any real discussion. There are only those who believe, and those who know there is nothing to believe. Those threads start and end in "memory wars", so to speak. Myself and others, have asked the proponents some critical questions. They tend to get completely ignored. So whatever... That's why I made this thread.

I'm not interested in your evidence for the Mandela Effect. If you feel the absolute need to share something however, please do not, unless you can present something worthwhile, for a change. Things that are not worthwhile include; movie quotes, product/corporate labels, typos in printed media, world maps, and of course, Nelson Mandela himself. It is not my intent or interest, for this thread to devolve into what most other Mandela Effect threads are.

Proponents of the Mandela Effect, I beseech thee! Let us scrutinize!

As a skeptic, my biggest question is this:

What's happening to the people?

Alright, I may be incorrect but if I understand the gist of this theory, it is that people are shifting from one timeline to another. In one timeline, life is like a box of chocolates. In another, life was like a box of chocolates. Alright, so suspending my disbelief, we have established at least two realities.

So if you come from the reality where the line was, "Life was like a box of chocolates" but find yourself in ours, where the line is different, what the hell happened to the version of you in this reality? Did they shift into the reality you came from (swapping places essentially) or shift into a third, or fourth reality? Are there only two realities?

As for the multiverse.. more than two realities. So does the shifting compound, ad infinitum? As one person shifts into an alternate reality, something must have to happen to the "them" of that reality. Presumably that would be a shift of their own. Which would trigger a shift for the "them" in their new reality.

It gets very confusing thinking about the possible mechanics.

And that's where this whole thing falls apart for me. I have yet to see anyone consider some of the things I've brought up here, and how it would effect this theory. Another question would be, why is it mostly pop culture stuff? Or things that have alternate explanations, that frankly make way more sense.

I realize people "know" it was one way or the other. That doesn't mean anything to me... that is entirely subjective. It's akin to how people "know" their God is real. I cite a multitude of faiths, and not just one. They can't all exist, despite how much one may "know" that theirs does.

In my opinion, the Mandela Effect doesn't stand up to a lick of scrutiny.

This thread is intended to be a place for the proponents of the Mandela Effect to take a more critical look at their belief. Let's see if this belief stands up to scrutiny, when considering the mechanics and implications of this alleged phenomenon.

That said, I am perfectly willing to reconsider and possibly have my mind changed, if anything substantial could be presented as evidence that may suggest such a thing is happening.

Again, I'm not interested in your evidence for the Mandela Effect. Please do not post evidence, unless you can present something worthwhile.

Thanks everyone, for taking the time to read my post.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

I think its just a form of entertainment more than anything.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

Be prepared for the "you must experience it to know", "I remember it this way" and all other comments to do with.....you guessed it......memory and how they just can't be wrong.

Is he, or is he not his father?

Edit...I don't buy the timeline slip scfi movie theory either,

Bad memoryitis imo.

I do not believe in the "Mandela Effect." I think people who insist that it was Schwartz, not Schwarz or Berenstein, not Berenstain are simply delusional. It never was. It's just that they assumed a more common spelling. Mandela didn't die in prison. Get over it. Really. You look foolish insisting it was YOUR way. You simply were not paying attention. I've never met a "Mandela Effect" that wasn't ALWAYS the way I remember it. If you "came from another dimension," you're an illegal immigrant. Get off of my lawn!

Ok. Having said that, there is this Many Worlds Theory promulgated by Hugh Everett, who said that for EVERY decision made, the universe splits off into one where the decision went one way, and another if the decision went the other way. His argument was based solely on mathematics, and his view was that you "have to follow the math" even though it takes you where you don't want to go, i.e. To an unfathomable proliferation of Universes.

He was basically "drummed from the profession" just like Wegener was when he proposed tectonic plates. He wound up in government service where he came up with the "MAD" theory, which was "Mutually Assured Destruction" that has worked very well among nation-states like the US, China, and Russia, since 1945, but probably is less effective with rogue states like North Korea and ISIS. He kind of gave up, got fat, and he died, basically telling the physics community to "sod off," to use a euphemism.

Although there have been claims that Everett's math has been proven wrong, I do not believe any of these anti-proofs have been solidly established. In other words, the jury is still out on the theory. But--in terms of the Mandela Effect, it's about the only thing that comes close to proving it MIGHT be possible.

At the risk of being cruel and also breaking it down to an understandable level for those concerned, i.e. those afflicted by this 'delusion' for want of a batter term.

This nonsense does not meet the criteria for mental illness, it is a factor of low intelligence and low IQ, or faulty memory if that makes you feel better about suffering from it.

The whole Mandela concept always makes me roll my eyes but recently I have been noticing a disturbing similarity in the mentality of those that believe in it to believers in religions.

Is this what we are seeing?

A birth of a religion? Born of frustration and pure and utter boredom?

Personally I like to think it's some kind of natural filter coming into play to separate us, the sane from you, all the crazy bastards.

I put everything I "remember" ( that is then shown to be erroneous) under the "Damn I'm getting old" category.
Memory is the weakest link.
You remember what you think happened...this transmutes into what actually happened. Then other sources show you what truly happened.
BOOM!
Mandela Effect.

Can't trust your own memory, tis a slippery bugger.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

I'm not interested in your evidence for the Mandela Effect. If you feel the absolute need to share something however, please do not, unless you can present something worthwhile, for a change.

Okay, but the anecdote is relevant toward a possible explanation.

I experience Déjà vu quite frequently, in the order of twice a week, but not every week, just sometimes a few weeks in a row. I'm not epileptic, so that's out.

This virtual reality investigation suggested that similarity between a new scene's spatial layout and the layout of a previously experienced scene in memory (but which fails to be recalled) may contribute to the déjà vu experience. When the previously experienced scene fails to come to mind in response to viewing the new scene, that previously experienced scene in memory can still exert an effect—that effect may be a feeling of familiarity with the new scene that is subjectively experienced as a feeling of déjà vu, or of having been there before despite knowing otherwise.
wikipedia-Déjà vu

Plus, I have a bit of an Eidetic memory (visual snapshot type storage). The Wikipedia quote doesn't quite explain it, but when I experience déjà vu, I test it, "How was I positioned when I 'experienced' this before?" "What was I seeing?" "What happened before?" "And then what?"

By asking those questions and determining that there are no actual connected positions, views, lead-up events, or follow up by which to locate the 'previous' experience to the present experience, then it's no problem to write it off as 'just another déjà vu'. If that makes sense.

Now the anecdote is something like an obverse of that.
----------------------------
Once upon a time I wrote a rather tear jerker story for a lady friend, which I gave to her. A few weeks later, a relative wanted an anthology of my works, and I thought that the new story would fit quite well, so I paid a visit to the friend and asked if I could borrow the story to copy in the proposed anthology, to which she agreed. So I hung out for a while chatting and drinking tea and such.

When it was time to leave I quite deliberately picked up the pages of the story, opened the door, went out to my car, opened the door, got in, and quite deliberately placed the pages on the seat beside me. Then I drove home. In the morning I went out to my car to get the pages. No pages in the car. After frantically searching every possible place in my house where I might have unthinkingly placed them, I braced myself for the uncomfortable task of informing my friend that I had lost her story.

"No" she said over the phone, "It's not lost. It's right here where you left it."

"What?" I asked "Are you sure? That's not possible."

"I'm looking right at it. Right where you left it on the floor."

"But I clearly remember picking it up."

"No, you got up and left it right there on the floor."
----------------------------------------------
My usual MO for testing for déjà vu' doesn't work with this incident because of the clear memory of the whole sequence of events. No drugs or alcohol involved, just sun tea.

It looks like your terms for posting to this thread are a bit high. Not much traffic.
Good thread though.

a reply to: pthena
Interesting story. Though I'm not quite sure what it has to do with the Mandela Effect. Unless you are suggesting that perhaps you did bring the story home, but at some point before the next morning came you shifted into a reality where you hadn't. Glad the story wasn't lost though. That's a plus.

It looks like your terms for posting to this thread are a bit high. Not much traffic.
Good thread though.

Perhaps as far as posting evidence suggesting the Mandela Effect is real goes. As I said, I don't want this thread to turn into the typical ME thread. I'm tired of the "Steins vs Stains" stuff. This thread isn't suppose to be for people to post that kind of stuff. Those threads are a dime a dozen!

I'm not criticizing theories of there being multiple realities.
I am critical of the whole shifting from one to the other thing, however.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

Unless you are suggesting that perhaps you did bring the story home, but at some point before the next morning came you shifted into a reality where you hadn't.

I don't much go for the multiple reality scenario, no matter how many science fiction stories and movies feature them, even when I like the stories. But since I can't write the change off as a memory glitch with my usual technique, I'm left with the possibility of a change in reality.

Mechanics wise, no rational explanation.

Oh, I just remembered another, more recent incident right in front of people. I probably should read the literature on this. A possible psychological explanation may have to do with a deliberate plan to do something which gets confused with what has already been done to execute the plan. "I could have sworn I already did that! Oh well, guess I'll have to do it for real this time." That kind of thing.

I better stop thinking in public, this is starting to get embarrassing.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

The mechanism I would use if ME were real would be timelines merging into each other like sliproads merging into freeway lanes rather than people jumping from one line to another.

Weaknesses with this idea:

What if someone was dead in the "merging" line but not the continuing line? Their friends and family would be shocked to see them suddenly alive and well, this is never reported.

What if you are alive in both the merging and continuing line? Do you become a mix of both selves? like when you riffle shuffle a deck of cards together?

On reflection, my idea is not a very good one, but you asked :p

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

What is jumping from one world-line to another? A mind? A consciousness? A soul?

Whatever it is, it is presumably immaterial, since you cannot transfer matter or energy across world-lines.

Memories, on the other hand, have a material basis: configurations of matter encoded in living brains.

So when your mind/soul/skandha crosses from one reality to the next, you can’t take along your memories. They get left behind in your old reality, inside your own brain.

I think the Mandela Effect people were originally Mandala Effect people whose timelines have got scrambled. In their own reality they were Tibetan sociologists studying what we in ours would call the Halo Effect.

a reply to: Vasteel

Believe it or not, somebody thought hard about this stuff and wrote a novel about it. It’s a crazy acid-trip of a book, and you’d never believe how much clarity about quantum theory the author has hidden within the narrative joinery.

Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny

originally posted by: pthena
But since I can't write the change off as a memory glitch with my usual technique, I'm left with the possibility of a change in reality.

Are you open to the possibility that maybe, despite your certainty, you accidentally left the story at your friends house?

a reply to: Astyanax

An author that was a big influence on GRRM? Sold.

I've been trying to find a book to read, and I think I just did, thank you.

Sounds like it will be a trip, as you say.

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer
What's happening to the people?

I'd like to know that too. What's happening to the people and their anatomy? How can a person from another dimension shift to ours and change their anatomy so drastically? What are the mechanisms behind those physical changes?

Great thread, but I don't think you'll get a real answer from the believers, if they reply at all. I don't think they want to analyze this logically.... but I hope they prove me wrong.

Shifting timelines is just one possible explanation for the Mandela effect and why it is happening.

The Mandela effect does not automatically mean alternate realities or shifted timelines, or parallel universe.

For example I think that if the ME is real it is happening in this one timeline, this one universe, this one reality, and this same earth we have all been on the entire time.

What is happening, in theory, is our world is being edited somehow.

No timeline shifting at all.

The people who don't notice the effects, or claim that the new version of something is how it always has been are still experiencing the changes like everyone else. Its just way to wild and unfathomable, or ridiculous for some people to accept.

I think we are all in the same boat.

The Mandela effect, and alternate timelines are two completely separate ideas that may or may not be related to each other IMO.

Just my 2cents

The most ridiculous part of the Mandela effect theories is how some of the naysayers seem to find it necessary to be absolutely rude and condescending.

It upsets them somehow, and that's just kind of weird.

If I don't like something I'll just avoid it, not actively campaign against it, surround myself with it, and insult people I don't agree with.

originally posted by: GoShredAK
The most ridiculous part of the Mandela effect theories is how some of the naysayers seem to find it necessary to be absolutely rude and condescending.

It upsets them somehow, and that's just kind of weird.

If I don't like something I'll just avoid it, not actively campaign against it, surround myself with it, and insult people I don't agree with.

Some people are just miserable I guess.

I'm completely ok with people being rude and condescending to those who are too arrogant to admit the shortfalls of their own memory.

I come on ATS to avoid stupidity, not surround myself with it.

originally posted by: GoShredAK
The most ridiculous part of the Mandela effect theories is how some of the naysayers seem to find it necessary to be absolutely rude and condescending.

It upsets them somehow, and that's just kind of weird.

If I don't like something I'll just avoid it, not actively campaign against it, surround myself with it, and insult people I don't agree with.

Some people are just miserable I guess.

LOL nobody is miserable! The motto is 'deny ignorance' and that's what we do, and ignorance comes in many different forms: bigotry, pseudoscience and also the Mandela effect.

What is happening, in theory, is our world is being edited somehow.

There is no possible 'somehow', unless you can explain it and prove it.

The people who don't notice the effects, or claim that the new version of something is how it always has been are still experiencing the changes like everyone else. Its just way to wild and unfathomable, or ridiculous for some people to accept.

^^ This is just as ridiculous as religious people telling me I don't believe in God because I can't accept he exists.