John Titor - time traveller?

[Detonate]

I've spent this afternoon on one helluva weird links journey, covering things such as microsingularities, CERN and a guy called John Titor.

 

Dunno if anyone is familiar with him, but here's a link

 

If any of this made the news, I can't believe I missed it!

[Gimli]

This is old news, but this is the first time I've actually bothered to go through (some) of it. The only thing I want to comment on is the infinite universes thing. From what I've read so far, it matches the theory of time that I had thought of on my own. Of course, mine isn't really based on anything tangible, just logic. Most of it was formed because I have a hard time believing in paradoxes, and the multiple timelines theory beats the What if you kill your grandpa? paradox. I'm wondering how he explains it works, my newest version relies on time being multidimensional (2 or possibly more).

Hoax or not, it will be an interesting read, if for nothing else than food for thought.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

According to him, wasn't there supposed to be a nuclear war in 2005 that would wipe out civilization as we know it?

[Gimli]

Nope, 2015 he says. Good thing we have a vault in my neighborhood.

[Aralez]

There can't be an infinte number of universes. Ok that's a bit hard to explain: If there would be an endless number of universes everything that is vaguely possible will appear in one of them, it's a matter of statistics. Even e.g. if the possibility that you win 258179 times the lottery jackpot in a row is very tiny it will happen in at least one of the universes. No, wait, actually in endless universes...

 

Anyway:

BUT that would mean that there exists a universe where e.g. someone develops a machine that ends all universes by pressing a single button (Not very likely in a single universe, but we are talking about infinity here). And he already pressed it. ->Paradox

 

The only reasonable explanation would be that there are (maybe) a lot of universes. But infinte? No sir

 

Back to main topic: Some years ago, he wrote that there will be a major civil war in the USA in 2004. So...

[Crazy Gringo]

Are we talking about time travel or prophecies?

If it is prophecies then I can say such things I leave to fortune tellers and economists.

As for time travel.

The concept of timelines, or worldlines as John puts it, is very interesting. Sure you might have a finite numbers of universes but does this apply for timelines as well or do you have an infinite number of possible timelines.

The only flaw that I can find in Johns logic of time travel is this.

If you travel back in the past things and events leading to your the travellers timeline has already happend. If the time traveller starts messing up things and events in 'his' past the future of the time traveller should be changed instead of staying the same as John puts it.

The movie 'The butterfly effect' demostrates this concept quite well.

The question is if the future memories of the time traveller will change if the travels back to the future or if they will remain the same.

[Aralez]

Because of the paradox you described (I travel back in time and shoot me as a child) those scientists who dogmatically believe in time travel "created" the theory of paralell timelines/universes. Meaning that you actually never travel in time but into another universe.

 

I personally do not believe in those scientists, they sound more like a child that stole some cookies and blames a ghost for the missing cookies when his parents catch him

 

Another paradox: if you travel back in time and kill yourself you wont exist later to travel back in time (and kill yourself), this means you won't kill yourself, and this means you will later exist and travel back in time (and kill yourself) etc etc etc aaaaaaaargh

 

my tip: Accept your guilt! You stole the cookies!

[Crazy Gringo]

So basically you can go back screw things up so bad as possible and then go back to your present day just the way you left it?

Is time really that 'foregiving' that you can mess it up as much as you can without any possible repercussions?

Otherwise you can't do anything to change the past as it is locked 'You can't change what already has happend!'

[Tepid tasoth]

Uh, let's just assume this isn't a hoax, did he mention anything on how to survive WW3?

[Matri]

The better example of a time paradox is the one used in movies: Someone travels back from future to the past to prevent a catastrophe and succeeds. If that's so, then no one from the future would have a reason to travel back to the past to prevent this.

 

Makes for a better-than-mediocre movie, but utterly impossible logic-wise.

[Crazy Gringo]

*Pulls out Temporal Physics 101 a.k.a. How to program your VCR correctly*

What is clearly not understood is the nature of time and space and therefore when you discuss time travel it turn into a logical/philosphofical debate with a whole lot of what-ifs.

Forget about the various what-if's for a moment and think about how you precieve the nature of time and space.

But basically I believe that the past is set in stone and the future is not.

So if you go back in the past and change it, then you are screwed because you can't get back to the future that you came from.

If you try to go back you will go back to a future as a result of the changes you made in the past.

But the paradox of you going back in time and kill yourself/parents/family resulting in you never exsisted is just one that really can give grey hairs because of it being such an infinity loop.

To break that infinity loop paradox let me say this: You are you independent time and space sure you'll die and cease to exsist in this world/universe but whereever or whenever you go as long as you live you exsist for yourself. It's if you exsist to your surroundings that there is the interesting part.

[Strong Bob]

Anyway:

BUT that would mean that there exists a universe where e.g. someone develops a machine that ends all universes by pressing a single button (Not very likely in a single universe, but we are talking about infinity here). And he already pressed it. ->Paradox

I think the guy makes it clear that the only differences seem to be historical/social in nature. The basics of physics essentially work the same. IE: Fire is still hot, water is still liquid, etc.

 

So the answer to that "paradox" is that, simply put, destruction of any given "universe" is "physically" impossible. And therefore some things simply will not happen in the infinity of universes on mere grounds that they just cannot happen no matter what choices are made.

 

Maybe time isn't so much a progressive thing as it is simply set in stone from the get-go. IE: If I went "back in time" to 1955, I would be going "back in time" to another universe. This wouldn't necessarily mean I'm altering the future of that universe at all. What it really means is that I am as much a part of that timeline as anything else. So of course nothing can get "screwed up" by revealing anything from my own timeline. For one thing, I'm not altering anything, especially since it's not even the same universe. For another thing, the predictions I make can only be called "educated guesses" on mere grounds that my mere presence in that timeline, as opposed to my timeline, is enough reason to doubt whatever is to come in that timeline... Regardless of how much history I've read.

 

I am still skeptical of this man though. I do not see a "Civil War" between the rich and poor any time soon. And I have a hard time seeing a bunch of lower classes managing to carve anything decent out of this country, especially since we would be talking about low class civilians like the homeless, retail workers, and anyone working at minimum wage versus the upper class corporation owners that are the building blocks of technology and other critical aspects of life.

 

I must say, I hope that "New Constitution" is real enough at least.

[Detonate]

Well I spent last night and today actually reading the conversations JT was involved in and while I don't pretend to understand all of it, what I did grasp is that the infinite universes theory was 'correct'. Also, there is divergence from the original start point and the destination. However, the destination is not the actual past of the start point, due to divergence, so it's similar enough to the original point but diverse enough not to actually change the original future... if you see what I mean? Subsequently, the return trip is equally held to the divergence factor so even though it's not the original start point, it's close enough to merit calling it 'the same'.

 

It was an interesting read, and I don't hold with either argument for it being a hoax or real, it was merely a fascinating topic to see the course of conversations and peoples' reactions.

 

The 'reason' we aren't seeing the predictions comes back to the issue of divergence, if you wish to follow that school of thought - we don't follow JT's worldline sufficently enough to witness events unfolding as he did.

 

I enjoyed it for what it was, nothing more, nothing less. I don't need to be converted either way and if it was true, then we'll be seeing CERN results in the near future, if they go public with the predicted discoveries.

 

What I couldn't grasp was the destruction caused by WWIII and yet there was enough infrastructure left yet not consistent - no tv as such, everything via the web, but credit cards & taxes were still maintained. I couldn't get a grip on what that was all about and it didn't make sense to me - survival was the priority, especially with food, etc, but there were oddities in what survived economically, from a capitalist viewpoint, as well as the techincal infrastructure.

 

And of course, there was little mention about the rest of the world's status, especially Europe despite having been blown off the face of the planet if you read into the conversations.

 

In the same vein there is the issue of the military. It's mentioned that the military were part of the 'enemy', protecting cities, so it stand that the bulk of the armed forces would be subjected to the same attacks as the cities - remember security became the number one reason of discontent over civil liberties & freedom. There was no consistent mention of how the country rebuilt itself after the attacks, but my overriding impression is that cities are no go areas due to fall-out and disease.

 

Well, it was more enjoyable than The Flipside of Dominic Hyde that's for sure :-)

[Aralez]

For a WW 3 "survival" manual look here: https://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488

Though i'm not sure that i actually WANT to survive such a war. And the film is only talking about a small-scale nuclear war. (Small-scale nuclear war... as if there is a "SMALL" in nuclear explosions...)

 

The BBC has a lucky hand with those documentations imo. There are plenty of them (even about Parralel Universes https://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=4183875433858020781 and Time Travel https://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-5896048467372201322 ! just search for BBC and DOCUMENTATION on Google Video. I've spent days watching them, no kidding.

 

And yes, Detonate, even if you don't believe a word of what the supposed time traveller says, it's a nice way to provoke interesting thoughts.

 

Btw in one of the documentations from the BBC several scientists came to the conclusion that time travel is not only impossible, but unnecessary. They come to a rather surprising solution/conclusion at the end of the film

: It would be easier to simulate the past in a mega-computer and the people in that simulation would not know if it is real or not. And of course they fall over the next big paradox in philosophy: How do i know that i'm real?

 

Nobody does, even if a god existed, he could never be sure that he isn't a simulation neither.

[Detonate]

Aha! the crazy link discovery continues!

 

check this out - three legged legs: humans

 

I've spent since Wednesday finding all these bizarre links and vids - last night I ended up watching the channel 5 prog (on youtube) on David Icke!? A bit painful in places, but interesting in the same was as rubbernecking an rta is.

 

yeah, I keep regular viewing on the bbc news website's science & tech pages, so vaguely recall some of the stuff they've reported, like cloaking devices and near warp technology or whatever. I found out about the Z Machine via the JT sites, which is kinda mindblowing. Sandia ntnl labs has a pic of it in full 'lighting arc' mode and it's incredible to see: arcs & sparks

(it's an X-ray generator trying to create a fusion reaction or suchlike, apparently)

 

Well I hope our simulation is better looking than Spore is turning out to be!

 

I hope God has better tech support than us, that's all I can say...

[Matri]

Meh, I think god abandoned support many millenia ago.