The Traveler

J. Chr. de Vries

For my uncle ‘Here is the Giant’ Leo

I was who I will be. 

— Amenhotep III, regarding the deity of the people with the shuffling feet.

Fact: I met Reid Zieger once, in person, to be precise; that was on February 17, 1999. Exactly 273 months later, I received a message from Taunis Haas, in which he recounted a peculiar story involving the same Zieger. The reason for this story pertains to the imminent conclusion of the game of chess, something we had known theoretically for a long time but had not yet provided a practical answer to. It is a complex matter that we can only grasp indirectly. The fact that this detour, as is often the case with Haas, is quite implausible, nonetheless does not make it any less necessary.
 However, the history was also puzzling for Haas; he couldn’t provide an explanation that would make it genuinely plausible. ‘The only thing I am capable of,’ as he wrote in the accompanying message, ‘is to report my encounter with Zieger. And it is up to you to assess its value.’ Yes, figure it out for yourself, typical Haas, but who am I to hold the yardstick of truth against the stories that reach us?


Zieger is undoubtedly an actual person. As I mentioned above, I met him once, but I haven’t heard from him since. He seemed to have vanished into thin air after that encounter. Haas had the same experience, as he wrote in his message, but he had an explanation for that disappearance. ‘No matter how unbelievable this explanation may be,’ he wrote, ‘it is the only explanation I could find that holds water. Sometimes, the fantastic is our only foundation for existence.’


It’s best to let Haas have the floor.

JCdV — Bonnemort, November 17, 2021

The Chess Game

Taunis Haas

Of all the encounters I’ve had the privilege of experiencing, the one with Reid Zieger is the most fantastic, in the literal sense of the word. To this day, I have no idea what to make of it, except that it was unbelievable. We crossed paths by chance, although this word would take on a new meaning for me after our meeting. Coincidence and fate, concepts intertwined: what befalls you and what awaits you. It is no coincidence that the French language has two words for ‘future’: futur and avenir; the first refers to the future we try to grasp in some way or another; the second, literally meaning ‘what is to come’, pertains to what will concretely happen. We only know that afterwards. French culture is highly formalistic, requiring an abundance of personal data for various public matters, such as contracts or tax affairs, with separate forms for each aspect. It’s no wonder, then, that French has two concepts for ‘future’; everything must fit within a bureaucratic framework.

Coincidence or not, Zieger and I encountered each other at one of the three tournaments in the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin in March 2022. We stood next to a chessboard where two players were analyzing their just-finished game, swiftly moving the pieces back and forth with flashy hand gestures. When the player who lost with the black pieces rapidly moved the pieces a few moves back to demonstrate a new variation, the man standing right beside me exclaimed, ‘Nein!’ Everyone around the board looked up in alarm, and the player holding his arm with the piece froze in mid-air. ‘Entschuldigung!’ the man continued, ‘The knight should go to F6.’ A long silence followed, with the hand holding the knight still suspended in the air. My neighbour mentioned a few moves that should follow the knight move, and then abruptly fell silent as he had spoken. The other player shook his head, visualizing the sequence of moves, and suddenly his mouth dropped open. He looked at his opponent, who apparently saw the same thing he did, as he did indeed place the knight on the suggested square. Shortly after, the pieces resumed their rapid movement on the board, accompanied by loud commentary from both players. Then something astonishing happened: my neighbour walked away from the board, seemingly having lost interest in the analysis. I saw him head to the bar and order a whiskey. I hesitated. On one hand, I was curious about the outcome of the proposed variation, but on the other hand, I was even more curious about the peculiar figure I had just stood next to. I walked to the bar, also ordered a whiskey, and took a seat next to the man on a barstool. ‘Aren’t you curious about the outcome of your suggestion?’ I asked him. He glanced at me absentmindedly and said, ‘No.’ I looked at him inquisitively, and only then did he make eye contact. Taking a sip of his whiskey, he said, ‘I already know how this ends. It’s a draw. Black’s move was a mistake.’

We introduced ourselves and started talking. Naturally, we briefly discussed the game whose analysis we had just witnessed, but soon the conversation shifted to chess itself. Initially, Zieger was somewhat reserved in his conversation, but gradually he became more relaxed, and eventually spoke with a lively tone and great passion. I convinced myself that it wasn’t just the whiskey, which we were indeed increasingly consuming, but rather that he appreciated my comments and occasional rebuttals. The game we had just seen barely interested him; he claimed to have known it from beginning to end, specifically from the moment of his proposed knight move. When I asked him how he knew that game and how it was possible since, to my knowledge, the game had never been played, he replied that indeed the game had never been played, at least not in a tournament, but he had already seen it; and moreover, he had memorized it move by move. Zieger had a photographic memory. That led us to talk about the game of chess itself and the enigmatic figure of Uwe Krilz. Zieger asked if I had any idea how many possible chess games there are. I took a guess and said an infinite number, but he strongly disagreed. There are indeed an enormous number of possibilities, he explained, but it is a finite number. Various estimates have been made, all yielding numbers with at least 43 digits, going up to numbers with as many as 123 digits, numbers for which we have no names. Except for the first one: the ‘Shannon number’, named after Claude Shannon.

Zieger gave a lecture: Shannon estimated in 1950 that the number of possible chess positions is 10^43, a 1 followed by 43 zeros. However, the number of positions is not the same as the number of possible games, as a specific position can arise in different ways within a particular game. Therefore, the number of possible games is much larger. The current estimate is that it’s at least 10^123 games.

“That’s actually infinite in practice, isn’t it?’”I asked bewildered.

“Nein!” he replied again. It is indeed an enormous number, more than, for example, the number of atoms in our universe, estimated to be a 1 followed by around 80 zeros, but it is still finite. “But let me tell you my story about this, it will make things clearer.”

The word ‘clearer’ turned out to be quite an overstatement, as I soon noticed. However, it was undeniably extraordinarily curious and also bewildering. About thirty years after Shannon’s estimate, during the time when the first computers were entering the market, a mysterious figure embarked on an impossible project: mapping out all possible chess positions in order to create a program that always finds the strongest move in a game of chess. This figure, Uwe Krilz, built his own computers, using computer hardware available on the market but supplemented with his own hardware and software. The machines he designed were faster and more powerful than commercial computers. Furthermore, the program he developed could be continuously adapted to the latest hardware and software. While his machines worked on the positions, Krilz could simultaneously develop new, faster versions.
 Krilz also worked with a so-called ‘batch’ of 128 parallel-connected computers, which provided him with tremendous computational power. Over time, that computational power grew exponentially due to the increasing speed and strength of processors. The speed of a computer can be measured in ‘flops’, an abbreviation for floating-point operations per second, which represents calculations per second. One megaflop means one million of those calculations per second. Whereas a computer in the 1980s could achieve a speed of approximately 100 megaflops, thirty years later, that speed had to be expressed in teraflops, one million times faster. In 2020, the fastest computer in the world had a speed of 512 petaflops, which means 512 x 10^15 calculations per second.


I felt I was getting dizzy. I tried to grasp Zieger’s argument. So, Krilz was attempting to compile all possible chess games in his computer system. Once that was accomplished, this computer would be able to win every game. Or would it? In any case, it seemed to be quite a task because he had been working on it for half a century. Why did it take so long? Those computers were apparently super fast, performing a trillion calculations per second! With that speed, couldn’t he have already mapped out all those games? What was I missing? More and more questions swirled in my mind. I lined up a few questions and started bombarding Zieger.
 “Why does it take so long to input all those games into that computer system? Krilz has been at it for half a century.”
 I noticed how Zieger casted a pitying look at me. He took a big sip of whiskey before answering.

“Let’s do a little calculation.” He took another sip. “Based on today’s fastest computer, disregarding the slower ones from the previous decades, which gives us an inflated picture… alright, based on those 512 petaflops, we arrive at 512 x 10^15 calculations per second. If we consider that 1 hour consists of 3,600 seconds, a day has 24 hours, and a year has 365 days, resulting in a total of 3,600 x 24 x 365 seconds, rounded to 3.5 x 10^7 seconds, then that supercomputer can perform 3.5 x 512 x 10^7 x 10^15 calculations per year, approximately 1.8 x 10^22 calculations. It would take nearly 10^21 years for those 10^43 positions. And that’s just having all the possible positions lined up. But then a value judgment must be added to determine the winning game. You see, Krilz was facing a colossal problem.”

“It’s impossible, then,” I concluded. “But why would anyone even want to do this? Current chess computers are already so strong that professional players struggle to win or even achieve a draw.”

“Of course, Krilz wasn’t concerned about winning or the competitive element,” Zieger resumed his pitying gaze. “He was after something else: to map out the seemingly infinite, thereby radically eliminating the competitive element.” He refilled his glass. “All the false romanticism attached to the game of chess had to be completely scraped away.”
 I stared at him in bewilderment for a few moments. The staggering numbers didn’t affect me further; I grasped the essence of it all: chess was a finite game, so from the first move, white would win or achieve a draw, though it wasn’t yet clear which of the two. What was clear, however, was that all the tension had been completely eradicated. Yet, the tragedy of this entire endeavor was that none of this theory could ever be proven in practice. It would forever remain a hypothesis — 10^21 years seemed like an eternity to me. Will our solar system endure that long, I suddenly worried.

“So, it’s all a futile effort,” I concluded. “If the computer were to play against itself, white and black would be perfectly matched, and the game would unfold as a system. But this will never happen, so we’ll never find out whether it ultimately leads to a white win or a draw. Or perhaps it turns out that black always wins because the advantage of starting ultimately becomes a disadvantage… What’s the point of this exercise?” I looked at Zieger with a perplexed expression. He attempted to refill my glass, but I shook my head and covered it with my hand, wanting to preserve the little clarity my brain still possessed. He shrugged.

“Black can only win if white follows a faulty variation, which is impossible due to the programming,” he impatiently remarked. “The advantage of the first move is undisputed.” He paused for a moment, seeming to hesitate on whether to continue our conversation. “The story isn’t over yet,” he finally said.

Following that, there was a lengthy and rather technical discourse that I only partially understood, as the numbers from before continued to whirl in my head. But from what I gathered, not all possible positions needed to be examined. Zieger explained that it was sufficient to find one opening variation that would lead to a win or a draw, rendering all other positions unnecessary to explore. After all, white could always start with the same move. This drastic reduction in the number of positions to be examined applied not only to the opening but also to the endgame. Ultimately, many different games could lead to the same end positions, such as both kings remaining with white having an extra pawn. Krilz had started by mapping out all positions that followed the opening move e2-e4, one of the most common openings in chess. Moreover, he had disregarded various nonsensical counter-moves because it was evident that they weakened the black position to such an extent that a win for white was inevitable. The goal was to chart the strongest counter-moves by black. He had indeed been working on this for half a century, and even longer, but he saved that part of the story for later. To circumvent the problem of filtering out the ‘nonsensical’ variations, his program also utilized the most advanced chess programs available. They knew how to handle the nonsense variations. Thus, Krilz’s developed program was a hybrid, using both ‘smart’ programs and the database of positions based on that one opening move. The remaining challenge was to determine a win for white or a draw.
 The prevailing belief is that correct play should always lead to a draw. The starting advantage is too small to claim a win. However, there are opposing views, so to reach a definitive judgment, Krilz’s project had to be completed. Ultimately, this was achieved, but it required a different technology. Once again, Zieger referred to a new aspect in his story about chess, making a detour. It wasn’t clear to me if he did this to maintain suspense or for another reason; he seemed nervous about something, uncertain. Sensing my scrutinizing gaze, he conjured a smile and continued his discourse undeterred. He explained that the decisive conclusion was finally reached: the advantage of the first move is not significant. Krilz had fully analyzed the opening move e2-e4, and the result was always a draw. This didn’t immediately imply anything about other opening moves, such as the equally popular move d2-d4. However, when the computer plays e2-e4 perfectly and reaches a draw, it becomes clear that black can never win. Krilz had also made significant progress with the d2-d4 variation, suggesting a similar conclusion could be expected. Other opening variations were inherently less promising for white. “Of course,” Zieger emphasized, “assuming the computer is playing, meaning perfect play. When humans play chess, other factors come into play — physical, psychological — anything is possible then. Krilz was purely interested in the theoretical aspects. Humans were irrelevant.”

For a while, Zieger had been staring ahead. We had ordered some snacks and a bottle of sparkling water to alternate with the whiskey. Suddenly, he turned to me and stared at me intently for a few moments, as if he had to make a decision. And indeed, that was the case. Words fail me to adequately describe what followed; I was completely overwhelmed, and my thoughts oscillated between disbelief, astonishment, despair, but there were also physical reactions — I felt partly nauseous, yet almost euphoric. It was an entirely ecstatic experience. I must admit that this state greatly influenced the writing style of my account of the encounter with Zieger. It became rather inconsistent; sometimes I was able to provide a businesslike description, but at times, I couldn’t prevent an excessively detailed portrayal of our conversation — everything, my writing style, my mental capacity, my life itself… everything seemed both meaningless and all-encompassing, providing an explanation. Yet, as a last resort, I held onto the belief that perhaps it was merely a result of consuming a bit too much whiskey. I suddenly hoped the same might be true for him. That realization pleased me so much that, for a brief moment, I felt like I had everything under control again.

“Alright,” he began, “as I mentioned before, there is another aspect connected to this story. I must confess that I hesitate to talk about it because it is so incredible that it almost seems like a joke, albeit not a very amusing one.” He paused, looking hesitantly at the whiskey without touching it.
 “Do you have any idea how old I am?” he suddenly asked. Surprised by this sudden turn, I looked at him, puzzled, for a while. He gazed at the whiskey swirling in his glass.
Fearing that he might not continue his story, I quickly made a guess.
 “About 40 years old?”

“44, to be precise,” he replied, looking at me again. “At least, at this moment.”
 Obviously, I thought. Age is always a specific, concrete moment.
 “But I am not just 44 years old,” he continued without waiting for my reaction. He gave me a peculiar look. “I am actually 113 years old.” He remained silent for a moment, observing my response.

“113 years old,” was all I could manage to say.

“Yes, unbelievable, isn’t it?” A smile formed on his lips, but his eyes didn’t share the laughter.

“You look youthful for your age,” I attempted.

“I understand your reservation, but please give me the time to explain. You won’t regret it.”
 I made a gesture with my arm, indicating that he could proceed. Why not? What did I have to lose? I would soon find out.
 “Let me start from the beginning.” Zieger took a sip of his whiskey. I decided to follow suit. “That figure, Uwe Krilz, worked on another project, a completely different project — at least, that’s how it appears at first glance. However, in the end, both projects are symbiotically connected. This man was a typical homo universalis.”

Zieger began explaining how science had made two discoveries — or inventions, depending on how you look at it — within a relatively short period of time. The first one, in 2038, was a genetic technology that could significantly extend human lifespan without the physical decline processes we are currently confronted with, that is, as of 2022. It wasn’t eternal life, but an age of several centuries became within reach. Age-related ailments such as dementia, arthritis, and other discomforts became a thing of the past. Most types of cancer were eradicated. New diseases did emerge, but they were quickly brought under medical control. Of course, people still died at relatively young ages, and accidents were not prevented by this new technology. Furthermore, this technology was not accessible to everyone; as predicted, it primarily benefited the wealthy. So, he was wealthy, I understood, but I didn’t interrupt his speech for such trivial matters…
 The second discovery — or invention, as the distinction would prove irrelevant in the course of his story — was that of time travel. (Yes, you read it correctly.) The technology of genetic manipulation had led to a technology that made time travel possible. Not as typically depicted in science fiction stories or movies, but on a much smaller, more intimate scale. Humans could travel into their own past, backward in time, but not forward; the future, for now, remained unreachable through that technology. Of course, we keep getting older. Therefore, the temporal range expanded with the passing years. However, there was a limit to the past as well — you couldn’t go further back than your birth.


At this point, I did interrupt him: “So, you can travel in your past, but not back to your actual time?” I suspect my disappointment was evident on my face because he started laughing.

“No, you can go back and forth within your own life, and thus return to the moment of departure, your actual ‘present’,” he replied.

“And your ‘present’ is when exactly? Somewhere in the next century?” I tried to sound as serious as possible.

“2093, to be precise, so still within this century.” He ignored my understandable disbelief.

“And why can’t you go back further than your birth? I would love to have a conversation with Philidor or even Max Euwe…”

He didn’t respond to my attempt at humor. In a serious tone, he explained that time travel could only occur within one’s own life. The moment of birth served as the boundary. There were theories that it might be possible to travel back to the moment of conception or shortly thereafter, but traveling back to the moment of birth was strongly discouraged and had become illegal. This was mainly due to serious accidents that had occurred in previous attempts. Regressive therapies had briefly been popular, with catastrophic consequences.
 “You must understand that when time traveling, you assume the age of the time you travel to. That’s why I currently appear as a 44-year-old. If I were to go back to the time of my birth, I would appear there as a baby.”


Numerous questions burned on my lips, but he made a dismissive gesture and said it would be better if he could continue his story uninterrupted. In response, my hand reached for my whiskey glass.
 He first explained that during this journey, the brain — thus one’s intellect, memory, and recollections — remained unaffected. Therefore, at this moment, with me in Berlin as a 44-year-old, he had access to all the knowledge he possessed as a 113-year-old. This was one of the reasons why there was a critical limit to how far back in one’s life one could travel. Not only to better understand the issue of the birth time but also because at that moment, you have the knowledge to travel back to the present but lack the physical strength to actually do so. The risk then is getting stuck. It was suspected that the critical limit lay around the time our brains matured, which varied from person to person but was generally considered safe around the age of 18. That limit was now legally defined. Nevertheless, accidents still occurred. Even someone who travels back to their 18th year of life could experience a car accident, for example. At this point, the phenomenon of time travel became intriguing because it was increasingly understood that our concept of time needed a fundamental reassessment. As early as 2049, Krilz published a hypothesis that completely reframed our thinking about time travel. The hypothesis arose from the question of what would happen if the person traveling back in time meets their past self. Is this possible?
 The answer was both lucid, elementary, and bewildering: Yes, that was an inevitable condition. But not without dramatic consequences. The reason for this lay in the constitution of time travel: time, or rather, life in a particular time, could not be influenced by this travel. One cannot change history; everything is fundamentally fixed. In other words, any potential change carried out by traveling back in time would have already occurred at that specific moment, the change would have already taken place, and ultimately, nothing would be altered. Everything that happens and has happened forms one inseparable whole, within which different perspectives may exist, much like viewing a leaf on a tree from various angles, but the leaf remains the leaf, the event remains the event, life remains life, and time remains time. The person traveling back to themselves runs the risk of dying. Krilz’s theory suddenly explained inexplicable fatal accidents, catastrophic events, fatal premature births, and even so-called ‘crib deaths’. It goes without saying that the reactions to Krilz’s theory were very intense. Immoral! A slap in the face of parents confronted with such a tragedy! Fundamental pain is always unbearable, but the truth is rarely comfortable. After about a decade of grim and sometimes violent protests against this theory, the realization finally emerged that it was inescapable. In 2071, the first prototype was ready. Humans could travel back in their own past but not roam unlimitedly. They had to be perfectly balanced and maintain the right, well-calibrated distance. It was a matter of refined technique.

Zieger could see that I needed time to let everything sink in and process. He suggested going somewhere to eat, leaving the choice to me. I was fine with anything. Eating, not eating, what was the point anymore, I wondered resignedly. He noticed my dejected look and hoped to cheer me up with a delicious meal. We decided on sushi. We picked a good Japanese restaurant.
 “Now seems like a good time for questions,” he continued.

“I’ll need some time to think about it,” I said, pondering.

“Take your time.”

The waiter arrived with the menu, and without hesitation, we ordered a variety of sushi. And a large bottle of sake. I took some time to think, and when the first bites of sushi arrived, I began.

“There’s no need to explain that I don’t immediately have a clear structure for my questions,” I started, apologizing.
He waved it off nonchalantly.
“So, it comes down to the technique you apply when you go back, if I understand correctly,” I continued. “How can you know that? How do you do it, or rather, how do you know that at a certain moment you represent two forms of your being? Are you aware of that?”

“That is indeed the crux. You can’t always know that, which explains why sometimes things go wrong. But that’s actually unnecessary. It’s a matter of risk assessment. How can I explain this best?” He pondered for a moment. “Let’s first examine that risk,” he answered his own question.
 He glanced at me to see if I was still following, then continued, “It’s no different than in the life you were accustomed to until now; there are always risk assessments. Traveling in a car on the highway always carries a certain risk. We never really make a fuss about it. Boarding a plane — usually it goes well, but sometimes it goes terribly wrong.” He took a bite of fugu, pufferfish. “And now let’s hope the chef is still alive; he should have tasted it first to prove that he prepared it properly.”

I grimaced and followed his example. “Let’s see if I understand correctly. I travel back to myself, let’s say in the year 1999. I was 46 years old then, but I ‘meet’ myself as a 68-year-old. What happens then? Do I know that? What happens in my thinking, feeling, being?”

“That depends on the technique I mentioned. If an inexperienced time traveler attempts something like that, it can go seriously wrong. You might experience something similar to Multiple Personality Syndrome (MPS). Or you may enter a trance-like state, comparable to an LSD trip or something similar, with a potential deadly outcome. To the outside world, it may appear as an accident or an unexplained illness, but in reality, you become a victim of an ill-considered act for which you are responsible, that is, the ‘I’ from the present. So, you need to prepare yourself well and know exactly what you’re going to do and why. You must balance the two temporal elements of your ‘self’ effectively and accurately.”

“What would I experience then if I do it properly?”

“You would experience a moment of lucidity. You suddenly ‘know’ more than you thought you knew. Comparable to an insight, a brilliant idea, let’s call it ‘inspiration’; something that seems to come from ‘outside’ in a way. Some people might call it a ‘divine inspiration’. Everyone has this experience from time to time. It’s no different from what you’ve already experienced.”

“But are all those insights essentially encounters with a ‘self’ from another time?”

“No, not necessarily. Even if you don’t temporarily coincide with a ‘self’ from another time, you can still have that experience. We can always have insights, ideas, inspiration, regardless of time travel. Ultimately, that doesn’t matter at all because everything already exists.”

“But do I know after such a time experience that I temporarily coincided with a future ‘self’?”

“That depends on how you look at it. The experience of that future ‘self’ coincides symbiotically with the experiences of your earlier ‘self’. So, you do have the knowledge of your future ‘self’, but without experiencing a form of split identity. However, the latter is possible, and it’s a risk for which no satisfactory solution has been found yet.”

I thought for a moment. He remained silent, visibly enjoying another bite of sushi. “It reminds me of Jung’s concept of ‘synchronicity’. Does it have anything to do with that?”

He waited until his mouth was empty and replied, “Yes, it can, but not necessarily. Not everything in this field has been thoroughly investigated yet.”

At the time of my meeting with Zieger, Berlin was not my place of residence. I was staying in a hotel during the chess tournament. After our meal, when I returned to my room, I tried to make sense of everything, to sort it out and give it a place. The latter was particularly difficult. It could only happen if I believed him. But if I didn’t believe him, what on earth had happened this day? Had I met a future ‘self’? The idea seemed both enticing and terrifying at the same time. I didn’t really know if I wanted to believe the story. Probably not. But I couldn’t shake off the idea.


Anyway, Zieger’s story had continued for quite some time. We spoke late into the evening. Zieger could effectively counter all doubts, counterarguments, and questions, and I couldn’t find any breach in his explanations. He had a convincing answer for everything.
“What if I bring an object from the future to the past, the latest mobile phone or something similar? Wouldn’t that be compelling evidence for this whole story?”
It didn’t work that way. Time travel wasn’t a matter of materiality; there was no material transported, no such thing as a time machine. It turned out to be a mental process, related to our genetic structure and energy fields, but I couldn’t grasp a single bit of Zieger’s technical explanation. When I told him that I had no trace or feeling of meeting a future ‘self’, he said that it might never have happened. The technology could have been developed well after my death.


“So, no eternal life for me?” I asked resignedly. That’s when he started talking about that concept of ‘synchronicity’ again. It’s complex, he said, because unlike traveling in one’s own past, this involves a symbiotic relationship between multiple individuals. He hadn’t delved into it further before, but now he felt obliged to say a bit more about it. What applies to the multiple ‘selves’ of one person, that it doesn’t result in changes in life, also applies to relationships between people, to what Aristotle called ‘bios’ — social life, in short. Superficially, from an external perspective, there are observable changes: we transport ourselves by car or plane, whereas Aristotle traveled on foot or horseback. Such changes, discoveries, or inventions naturally occur. The point is that these processes cannot exist independently of time. All these processes are already predetermined.
 When I remarked that this confirmed the theory of ‘determination’ he replied that it might seem so superficially, but in reality, that was not the case. Because there was still free choice and free will. If the opportunity arises, you can decide to travel back to a specific moment in your past, but you also have the choice of a different moment or the choice not to do it at all. Everything is predetermined in a certain way, but at the same time, it’s up to each of us to choose what we choose, to do what we do or refrain from doing so.
 The world, life, history, could have been completely different. However, we will never be able to rewrite history, to get rid of Hitler, for example, because that requires material conditions that are nonexistent in time travel. However, we can go back to our past with the knowledge of a later time and nourish that past, creating a symbiosis with that later time. Again, this is not a material change, because the so-called ‘altered’ state immediately becomes the current state. A change is always a change in relation to something. That ‘in relation to’ is not applicable in time travel.


I didn’t really understand what he was saying, so I asked a question in hopes of grasping at least some understanding, if only to determine how seriously I should take this whole story.
“Let’s say I crash into a tree and die in 1999. Can I then, with my advanced knowledge from 2022, go back to 1999 and prevent it?”

“No,” he said, “because if you died in 1999, you wouldn’t exist in 2022. Not to mention the fact that time travel doesn’t exist in 2022. But apart from that, if you had survived the accident, then yes, you could go back to a moment before the accident and do something to prevent it from happening. But then it never happened. That’s the crux of it! That’s the problem with those if-then questions, they don’t exist!” He saw my bewildered look but waited for my response.
 I tried again, “But in my memory, it did happen. That was the reason to go back in time, after all.”

“No, if you manage to prevent the accident, that memory disappears.”

“So, if I return to the ‘present’, I won’t remember why I made that time travel?”

“Indeed, that reason is likely replaced by a different feeling, experience, or idea.”

“But something has changed!”

“No, the state hasn’t changed, but it is different. You won’t even remember that memory, it’s simply gone, it never actually existed. There is a different ‘present’, but not an altered ‘present’. There is only one ‘present’. You have to think about the concept of ‘time’ differently.” He looked at me with an almost powerless expression but didn’t give up. “Think about the theory and laws of Newton. If you think from the theories of Einstein or Bohr, the laws of Newton don’t apply, at least not in the universe or in our microcosm. The laws of nature have been brought to a different level, placed in a different perspective by the latter, but that doesn’t mean the laws of Newton are no longer valid. If you stumble, you fall.”

“And what about dialectics? Can Kant, Hegel, and Marx be discarded now or not?”

Zieger sighed. “It’s much more complicated than that! I was just trying to explain that the laws of Newton are still valid in our daily lives. How could it be otherwise? The principle of cause and effect that Kant spoke of still applies, without a doubt.”

Sitting on the edge of my bed in the hotel room, I tried to understand everything Zieger had argued. It was about perspective. Certain laws, like gravity, apply here on Earth, but different laws apply in the universe, according to Einstein. In our daily lives, in our way of thinking or debating, we use dialectical principles. The fact that these principles are not valid, or at least not at that level, in the greater context of time travel doesn’t change that. I could follow that. But the idea that a change in the past ultimately wasn’t a change, that it didn’t actually happen, that was something I couldn’t grasp, at least not that evening.
 I now remembered that he had also claimed that something similar must be possible in the realm of ‘bios’, in the relationship between two or even multiple individuals. He did admit that there was still very little known about this. It had to do with Jung’s concept of ‘synchronicity’. Apparently, two or more individuals could bring about something that none of them could have achieved individually, while, and this is crucial, each of them had no knowledge of the others. That did indeed resemble the influence of the future ‘me’ on the past. It seems like there are multiple ‘me’s’, but in reality, there is only one. That must be it, I thought.
 At the end of our lengthy conversation, we returned to its initial cause, the chess game, and thus Uwe Krilz’s project. Zieger used it as a metaphor in a final attempt to convince me.


Just before the waiter kindly informed us that the place was closing, Zieger told me one last anecdote about how he had met Krilz.
 Krilz had a significant part of his chess program ready, and he made his theory, which had by then become part of his practice, known with great fanfare. Chess matches followed between the world champion and Krilz’s computer, but his computer also competed against other highly qualified chess grandmasters. In addition to matches, tournaments were organized, as well as simultaneous sessions. In the vast majority of cases, the games resulted in the computer winning, and in a few cases, it led to a draw if the human player had surpassed themselves. The computer was never defeated. After several years of matches against the computer, most people agreed: Krilz had won his plea.
 “And now comes the beautiful part,” Zieger had said. “Krilz connected the technology of time travel to his chess program, a move of stunning beauty!” I could still vividly recall Zieger’s radiant face. Krilz went back in time to upgrade his chess program, using the knowledge and experience from 2071 to improve the program in 2027, thus exponentially accelerating the analysis process!

“But that couldn’t be possible!” I exclaimed. “You couldn’t make material changes, right?”

Zieger laughed joyfully and patiently explained that this was not the case either. Indeed, Krilz couldn’t make any material modifications. He couldn’t bring back processors or other hardware, or floppy disks with software to 2027. However, he could use the knowledge he had acquired in 2071!
 When I looked at him skeptically, he continued at a rapid pace. In 2027, Krilz had to work with the hardware available at that time, but he could significantly improve it using the experience from 2071. It shouldn’t be seen as a set of simple actions. He didn’t tinker with his programs and computers. It’s much grander: at the moment he worked on his project in 2027 in the form of his new ‘self’, that new knowledge became the knowledge he already had in 2027! It shouldn’t be seen as two ‘selves’; the 2027 ‘self’ was a new version that replaced the original, not changed, but it took its place. The old one had never existed! Our language falls short here. The Krilz from 2071 travels back to his earlier 2027 ‘self’. At that moment, the 2027 ‘self’ is influenced by the 2071 ‘self’, and the 2027 ‘self’ becomes a different version, a smarter one, if you will. But not a version that has been tinkered with. The ‘self’ suddenly assumes a different form, a form that is not — and this is where our language falls short — different from the earlier one because the earlier one never existed. Time works differently than our language allows.
 Because Krilz understood this principle, he was able to accelerate his chess program by traveling back and forth in time. The ‘self’ in 2071, upon returning from 2027, was also a different ‘self’, but without awareness of this change, you must understand that! There were no two ‘selves’ that could be compared.
 I tried to put it all together once again. “How could he know that he could achieve that acceleration through time travel if he was not aware of the change in his ‘self’?” It seemed like a logical question to me, but Zieger laughed. A slightly mocking grin even appeared on his face. Perhaps it was a bluff, I considered, giving me the suggestion that I didn’t understand it all, to derive authority from it. But he continued his explanation undeterred.

“The theory of that acceleration was incorporated into his theory of time. He knew that it could not be otherwise, that time worked in that way by definition. He simply did it out of conviction. ‘Virtue lies in the action,’ Aristotle writes somewhere; ‘in the work’, he literally writes: ‘ergon’. It’s difficult to grasp, I understand, but now I’m getting ahead of my story, that anecdote will make everything clear.”

I lay on my back on the bed in my hotel room, staring at the ceiling. It was dark; I had turned off all the lights. I tried to make sense of the whole history. Indeed, language fell short, and I couldn’t formulate it all properly, but somewhere, at some intuitive level, I felt that Zieger was right. ‘You can compare it to the game of chess,’ he had said in the end. The game unfolds move by move, that’s one perspective, but nevertheless, everything is already predetermined; that’s the other perspective. So despite the sequence of moves, the end result is already fixed, decided in the first move.
 After that, Zieger finally told the promised anecdote.

Zieger began by telling how he made contact with Krilz. Krilz was at the height of his fame, having named his ‘invincible’ computer Omega, a reference to Tipler’s Omega Point Theory — but that’s another story. Zieger recounted how he, after showering Krilz with extensive compliments about his fantastic technologies, challenged him to a match against Omega. Zieger boldly announced that he would defeat the computer playing as black. Initially, Krilz dismissed him, unwilling to waste his time on such a challenge. But Zieger didn’t give up. He enlisted the help of several friendly journalists and involved various media outlets, publicly challenging Krilz. This media offensive turned into a hype, and eventually, Krilz succumbed. He didn’t think he had anything to fear from Zieger, but the hype provided him with potential new financial resources. Several major companies were interested in sponsoring the match.
 It’s worth noting that Zieger was an excellent chess player himself, aided by his photographic memory, which would surely make it challenging for the computer. Not that he stood a chance of winning, but he could reach a significant number of moves. This move count had become a benchmark in the professional chess world, and the ELO ranking was partly determined based on it. Zieger had a very high rating. Zieger negotiated that he would have the right to choose the time and place of the match and that the standard rules would be observed, including the use of a mechanical chess clock. Krilz agreed to the conditions without any issues, although he was surprised by the chosen time and place. Nevertheless, he knew that Zieger never stood a chance against Omega.


The mechanical chess clock is a device with two clocks, one for white and one for black. When the button for white is pressed, its clock starts running, and the black clock stops, and vice versa. Each player would be given 100 minutes of thinking time for the first 40 moves. If either player’s time ran out, if their ‘flag fell’, before reaching this move count, they would lose. The referee would operate Omega’s clock, following Krilz’s instructions, of course.
 But here’s the exciting part (Zieger’s eyes sparkled as he told me this): The match was scheduled to take place on August 2, 2027, in Casablanca, starting at 7 o’clock in the morning when it wasn’t too hot yet. That was the reason Zieger had given for the early timing. Initially, Krilz resisted, questioning why they couldn’t play in 2093 instead. Why all the fuss with time travel? But when Zieger presented him with the immense benefits, the media attention, and the extra money, but more importantly, the fact that the computer in 2027 was not nearly as fast as the one in 2093 but would undoubtedly be strong enough, it convinced him. It was, after all, the prototype of the latest version, and the match would serve as its celebration. Thus, his two projects, his magnum opus, would be showcased optimally. Krilz eventually agreed, and so it happened. Preparations were made, Krilz and Zieger traveled to 2027 and onwards to Casablanca. There, Zieger spent two weeks preparing diligently, exercising in the gym daily, abstaining from alcohol, and imprinting all the positions of the Capablanca Variation into his memory. He was in top condition.
 The Capablanca Variation, based on the opening moves e2-e4, c7-c6, is known as a solid defensive variation. Zieger had thoroughly studied it, devised variations to keep Omega thinking as long as possible and to reach as many moves as he could. The 2027 version was not as fast as the newest version from 2093, but it was fast enough, of course. He had prepared well and analyzed the speed of Omega-2027. It was crucial to remain focused, as he couldn’t afford any mistakes. Everything relied on perfect timing. On August 2, precisely at 7 o’clock in the morning, the referee pressed Omega’s clock, and it played e2-e4, which was no surprise. The match took place in the Grand Hotel Casablanca. Zieger sat on a podium in the grand hall, with the computer, a sizable apparatus, standing next to him. Krilz sat at a table beside Omega, operating her and signaling the referee which move to play. Rows upon rows of chairs were placed in front of the stage for the audience, who had come in large numbers. Massive vertical chessboards were placed on the sides of the stage to keep track of the moves. There was also a television crew with two cameras providing live coverage of the match. In a separate room, two international grandmasters were providing commentary on the moves played. The audience could freely move between the playing hall and the analysis room. Ushers made sure everyone remained silent, ‘No phones!’ A bar served special Omega Cocktails. In short, it was a carnival-like atmosphere!


The game developed steadily, and neither Zieger’s nor Krilz’s facial expressions revealed anything. Around ten o’clock, the players reached the 38th move, with Omega having three minutes left on its clock and Zieger with seven minutes. It was Zieger’s turn. He thought for another two minutes and then made his move. Krilz took his time and made his 39th move after a minute. Zieger appeared to be contemplating his next move. Then, something unexpected happened: at 10 minutes past 10, the power suddenly went out. Zieger immediately made his 39th move. If you looked closely, you could see a faint smile on his lips. He didn’t seem surprised by the power outage. A commotion arose among the audience, and Krilz paled; Omega was no longer responsive due to the power failure. After three minutes, White’s flag fell, and the referee walked over to the white clock and stopped it. Krilz looked astonished that the impossible had happened — Black had won the game on time. He approached the board, toppled his king, shook Zieger’s hand, and sat down on a chair in dismay. Outside, darkness had fallen. Suddenly, Krilz stood up, walked outside, and saw what was happening: a total solar eclipse had not only cast a shadow over the city but also caused a drastic power outage. It dawned on him what had occurred, how he had fallen into Zieger’s trap. Of course! Zieger had calculated everything; he knew this would happen, he knew the history. Krilz shook his head, but suddenly a smile formed on his face.

— TH, Berlijn, November 17, 2021

Postscript

Eleven months after Haas’ message, I received another message from him, this time short. But it also contained a curious message from Zieger, which he had sent to Haas. In other words, the message was a copied version by Haas of a handwritten letter from Zieger. Because of this new message, I reread the first one, and to my regret, I must admit that what initially seemed like a minor detail turned out to be a fundamental oversight that I had missed. The first message was dated November 17, 2021. In the message itself, it mentioned Haas meeting Reid Zieger in March 2022, approximately four months later. My initial thought was that one of the dates must have been a typographical error. My second thought was that it could only be the date mentioned in Haas’ own text because, of course, I had received the message in November of the previous year. However, when I checked the dates of the chess tournament where Haas and Zieger had met on the internet, it turned out to be indeed March 2022. I had no choice but to entertain my third thought, which apparently needed space in my mind, especially considering the content of that text: time travel. I must admit that despite its charm, I never took Haas’ text seriously for a moment. His idea of time travel seemed, frankly, nonsensical to me. But the issue with the aforementioned dates made my initial judgment waver. The text of the last message provided even more food for thought. Well, the final judgment is up to the reader. May the gods be with us!

— J. Chr. de Vries, Bonnemort, Oktober 17, 2022

Omega Punt

Dear Mr. Haas,

It has been about five years since we last met, although… one could also speak of a few months; it’s a matter of perspective, isn’t it? At the moment I am writing this letter, it has indeed been five years, but it feels like just yesterday. I am well aware that you may find it difficult to take my ideas — let’s use that term — seriously, or perhaps seriously but not truthfully. From the date at the bottom of this letter, you will undoubtedly assume it is postdated, but I assure you that it is not the case. Furthermore, I will offer you an option for verification. The letter you found in your mailbox was indeed written in August 2022, but it is a copy of the original. As I tried to explain to you during our long (yet very enjoyable) conversation at our meeting, I could not bring the original with me on my journey back to 2022 — no physical matter, remember? So, I left it in a postbox at the main post office in Casablanca, under postbox number 273; the code you need to open the box is: Uwe-Krilz; please note the case sensitivity! In five years, you can find the original of this letter there. I believe this will provide sufficient evidence for my claims. The letter is accompanied by an authenticity clause, signed by a notary. Furthermore, I owe you a further explanation of the proceedings regarding the match with Omega, the story of the anecdote we discussed.

Of course, the solar eclipse was a trick of mine to defeat Omega. It would never have been possible with conventional means; the machine is unbeatable. But humans will always seek ways to disrupt the machine, deceive it, or otherwise outsmart it. That is fundamentally important, as will become evident from the continuation of this writing.
 I carefully prepared that trick. The date was not chosen arbitrarily, nor was the location. I had to find a solar eclipse where the power had actually been out for an extended period. From 2093, it was not difficult to find that date and place. But there was another reason why it had to happen precisely in 2027: that was the year Krilz used as a starting point for his programming process through time travel. This method of time travel ultimately made the program possible, due to the continuously accumulating acceleration process. Krilz understood this very well, after a brief moment of disappointment. He was ultimately grateful to me, and rightly so. I will explain this further as well.
 Krilz pointed out to me that through this match, he realized the importance of the human element, the dialectical attitude towards the machine. In my trick with the solar eclipse, Krilz saw confirmation that humans always want to escape their fate or manipulate it, and moreover, that humans are highly skilled at it. After all, the theory of the unchangeability of history is not unequivocal. The game of chess beautifully illustrates this on a metaphorical level.

Dialectical processes and cause-effect processes also exist within the overarching Omega Point constellation. They are not contradictory but reinforce each other. The will to escape the unchangeability of things is crucial; it is the soul of the whole. At the highest level, the desire for escape and the Omega Point law form a symbiosis; they may seem contradictory, but ultimately they are one and the same.
 Then there is the aspect of synchronicity, which we also discussed. There are two layers to distinguish: synchronicity within one person but across multiple time planes (via time travel), and synchronicity between multiple individuals within one time plane but potentially in different locations or spaces. The entire history surrounding the Game of Chess demonstrates that both aspects are at play. Time travel is evident, but when we observe how the various encounters, namely those between you and me and between Krilz and me, are interconnected, this seems inevitable to me.
 Finally, and this is the most significant realization, an insight that Krilz shared with me. The moment Omega was defeated by my trick, something changed in Krilz’s thinking. In a flash of insight, inspiration, or however you wish to call it, a lucid vision emerged in his mind, and precisely this vision led him 22 years later to his hypothesis about time travel. The vision cannot truly be captured in words; it was a kind of realization, yet also a way of thinking about how everything interconnects and coincides. That vision, that idea, that revelation, words fall short, but it was born from the outcome of that match. He called that moment the Omega Point.

— Reid Zieger, Casablanca, Augustus 2, 2027