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[Scood]

i did a random search on time travel and found this guy kept popping up. any ideas on who this guy really is and if he is telling the truth?

http://www.johntitor.com/ a site dedicated to the mystery of john titor.

http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/TimeMachine.cfm concerning his time machine

[lemon10]

From wikipedia, since it seems that you didn't bother to look at it.

John Titor is the name used on several bulletin boards during 2000 and 2001 by a poster claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2036. In these posts he made numerous predictions (a number of them vague, some quite specific[1]) about events in the near future, starting with events in 2004. However, as of 2011, these events appear not to have taken place; he described a drastically changed future in which the United States had broken into five smaller regions, the environment and infrastructure had been devastated by a nuclear attack, and most other world powers had been destroyed.

To date, the story has been retold on numerous web sites, in a book, and in a play. He has also been discussed occasionally on the radio show Coast to Coast AM.[2] In this respect, the Titor story may be unique in terms of broad appeal from an originally limited medium, an Internet discussion board.

I would say no, he isn't a time traveler, just some troll/insane person.

[Sowelu]

and if he is telling the truth?

[alway]

Then he managed to save the world; thus making him no longer from our future.

[Ricky]

Then he managed to save the world; thus making him no longer from our future.

If we did save our world, all memory of John Titor would be erased, due to him not being able to travel here to warn us, but seeings how we are discussing him, we have not saved the world.

[Scood]

Then he managed to save the world; thus making him no longer from our future.

If we did save our world, all memory of John Titor would be erased, due to him not being able to travel here to warn us, but seeings how we are discussing him, we have not saved the world.

well from what i have read of John's posts, the "Worldline" is much different than what he lived through. I dont think he would like this alternate timeline i dont think he would consider it saving the world at all.

he was never from "our" future to begin with, but an alternate future.

[Ricky]

he was never from "our" future to begin with, but an alternate future.

relevance

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Scood]

http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/TimeMachine.cfm concerning a bunch of technical information about his time machine.

[Starver]

If we did save our world, all memory of John Titor would be erased, due to him not being able to travel here to warn us, but seeings how we are discussing him, we have not saved the world.

Not necessarily true.

My preferred theories of time travel would be along the lines of "Whatever you go back and do, you've already been back and done".  i.e. immutable time.  Not "The universe will correct itself", or any other karmic rebound method, but that the only viable time-loops that exist are the ones in which a self-sustaining situation occurs.

However, there are alternatives that are equally non-McFly in nature.  One is that on arrival at the destination point in the past you spawn off a new universe which features you as a cause to all future effects, while your original history (post arrival-time) merrily carries on without any time-travelling-you as before.

The question is, what would this mean about the uni/multiverse?

• Does this cohabit with quantum alternatives idea, that new universes spawn off every time a decision is made, or is this the only time that the universe splits?
• From what is the new branch of time created?  Does it require a universe's worth of matter and energy to create the new path?  (In which case, does the feedstock come from the end of the 'plucked off' branch, i.e. the dissolution of the universe's existence immediately after the original time-line was departed by the Traveller?)
• Alternately, if the entire universe is a zero-sum equation (e.g. matter + energy + dark matter + dark energy = zero; or other explanations of the origin of the universe allow it all to be just 'organised nothing' for the lifetime of the universe, from big bang to big-crunch or heat-death) then a copy universe (with Traveller, who has not been created, merely translocated from their origin) is possibly the easiest thing in the world.  Well, once one has mastered the whole temporal translocation issue.

TL;DR;:  A Travelling JT might have arrived here, and as long as his cause doesn't apply a butterfly effect to prevent it, not only will the displaced JT still exist (or have existed, if succumbed to mortality, or even Travelled elsewhere) but the young and 'native' JT might yet still arise and yet still have opportunity to go back to a similar or other chosen destination in time to state how 'our' future comes to be, possibly setting off another (different) branch of existence based upon this doubly-averted set of consequences, and so on until a version of him stops there being a version of him (native to his destined branch of time) able to continue.  At which point at least that branch will continue (barring other Travellers destroying their original futures), but maybe all the branches will continue onwards.

STL;SDR; It could happen.  Without any Grandfather Paradox.  Depends on how the universe works.  I still prefer stable time-loops, though.  Far simpler and more elegant, IMHO.

[Scood]

 JT describes the accepted theories of time travel of his worldline, in 2036. The problem with the "you can travel in time but only if you don't create a paradox" idea is that just by traveling back in time in the first place he has already changed it. He was breathing air that was not breathed before, and driving on grass that was not driven on before. that in itself is a paradox. The 'native' JT's family from our worldline moved from Florida to Nebraska after 'future' JT left from his visit. 'Future' JT has stated that he grew up in Florida. He already altered events in a way that may change the fact that he went back in time in the first place.


JT has repeatedly stated that he came from an alternate future. There were small changes in our history compared to his (different presidents, sports teams winning things like that), and estimated that our worldline is 2% different from his and he only traveled 38 or so years. if he were to travel farther back in time like a hundred years, The united states may have lost the revolutionary war.  The reason isn't because he changed anything, but because it is a completely different worldline, and the farther he travels the more distant he gets from his own worldline.

i dont know if im doing a very good job of explaining this.....

[Starver]

Stacked butterfly effect?

i.e. that jumping back to the last days of the ACW would introduce a "you" that has a small (but non-zero) possibility of perturbing the immediate future merely by 'being' where one hadn't been before.  (Increased if you go back with the express intention, and resources, to swing the war, but for now let's not ascribe such motives.)  But as more time passes from your arrival, the perturbations build up to cause many changes to Today's history.  And if you arrive a year or two prior to the war then there's more chance that the people you met in turn met (or didn't meet) other people, or other effects[1] and it's not just post-ACW times that change, but could be the outcome of the ACW itself.  Arrive at the time of the Revolution and it's even more likely.  Arrive even earlier and even more so.   (With all due apologies for this English person's ignorance of a lot of the nuances of your Rebellious Colony's recent history; i.e. the last two centuries or so... )

If that's the claim of the alleged Traveller, it's one possibility.  Without spending all (indeed any!) of my time looking through JT's writings on the subject, would anyone who has care to enlighten me as to whether the new timeline "branch" is supposed to be completely in addition (and parallel to) to the still-thriving original timeline, prune that timeline at the point of departure or to entirely remove the 'false start' branch immediately at the point of arrival, so that there is just one, crooked, branch with the otherwise inexplicable addition of the Traveller at the elbow of that crookedness?


Still, while I'm not averse to acknowledging the existence of time-travellers, I find the overwhelming elegance of a stable time-loop just too obvious an idea to discard as an untested hypothesis.  Rather than reject this guy on the grounds of physical impossibility, I'm actually closer to rejecting his ideas because they make the universe look just too messy, if true.  Something with a Traveller experiencing something more akin to a Twelve Monkeys situation (not necessarily aware of the fact that what was in his Future self's past is going to be part of his Past self's future, but it's certainly possible) wouldn't arouse anything like the same level of doubts.

But forget about the fading musician of Back To The Future or the silly "you can't touch yourself" (fnar!) of Timecop.  (They're not even going to be the same bits of matter, the skin or even bone of Young You and Old You.  And even if you leap back just a few minutes, the chances of future-version-of-atom being within a normal atom-to-atom distance of meeting its exact past-version-of-atom partner in a casual touch of hands is going to be minute, unless there's a weird morphogenic field projection thing involved for some reason.  Handwavium sorta thing, in several different senses of the term...)

I definitely go for the likes of the guys who go back in time to 'rescue' Hitler from the bunker just before he shot himself (either for real, or as a trick to put him on trial) are going to leave a reasonable facsimile of his dead body (or a volunteer martyr with appropriate cosmetic surgery) in his place to sustain the history that everybody knows (and, what's more, it had always been the case that they did).  Or the guy who goes back in time to work out why an ancient culture died out so suddenly didn't realise that he had a modern illness that they couldn't handle (and, possibly, that they had illnesses that his modern body wasn't used to, if they don't just throw him off a cliff for being a stranger who arrived and made the gods angry).  The guys with Time Travel ability who are in a fix decide to remember, when they're finally out of the fix, to ensure that their present selves get provided with the tools to get out of said fix.  Mysterious strange man who jumped out in front of a character right at the beginning of the story, behaving oddly, then later on seems to have no memory of the incident finally decides to prove he has time travel abilities by disappearing for a moment and coming back with his tie removed, having apparently carried out the action that his odd-self had performed.  The archaeological dig students who find ancient and anachronistic remains of a digital watch in the rubble just before the Incident which moves their professor through time are just part of the process that self-sustains that particular loop...  So, it doesn't always make for the better plotline than "Hero[3] goes back in time/comes from future and changes things For The Better Or Otherwise (TM)", but as in a film it's often the journey and not the destination that grabs you, then it could as likely be the re-journey that's the grabs you, and never mind the pre-destination...

I've not actually seen the Sarah Connor Chronicles[2], which I believe is supposed to show a malleable timeline, but when it comes to the Terminator movies themselves, I've long held that despite the apparent changing of the timing of Judgement Day, part way through the set, this little blip could be explained away by those being sent back (human and machine) having been misguided (or misguiding) about such 'details' so as to create consistent loops causing what happened to happen.  (I mean, already you have to have had the John's father as part of the loop, for there to actually be a loop.  We know that this bit ends up being self-consistent.)

Still, I'd try to be very careful not to slip off of the levitating walkway and landing on even a single insect, should I ever become a Time Tourist.  Pretty much every theory of Time Travel is untestable.  Even with Time Travel actually having happened.  How do you know that your departed timeline hasn't disappeared upon your leaving?  Even if you stick around after your arrival to watch yourself go back again (having either noticeably preserved or averted a time-loop) and find yourself still in existence, how do you know that that trip is your actual self and not a facsimile copy who instead of destroying the timeline he left has just destroyed himself in merely a convincing copy of your actual departure where you did end up obliterating the future existence of everyone (and everything) not accompanying you?  Maybe if one Traveller waited until after the first and then joined them (even pre-dated their arrival), something could be confirmed, but there are problems of false positives (and negatives) even with that, if you think about it.


[1] Your walking along a path eroded it just that little bit more which meant some icy puddle the next winter which caused a packhorse to slip and drop its pack and delayed the arrival of goods in the market by a few minutes, so that another trader had been by already, thus changing the availability and/or asking price of certain goods at a store at the next town along, which meant an expedition setting off into the wilds ended up with a different set of provisions that might have meant the difference (either way) between their being self-sufficient in their trip or having to barter (or otherwise!) with the relevant Native American residents, changing the local political situation, which meant a differing politics on a regional and states-wide level which meant a different Union/Confederate President...  Or any number of similar cascades of results.

[2] Or is it "tCoSC", I might be mixing the title up with the Sarah Jane Adventures.

[3] Generic hero or the actual Hiro from "Heroes" hero...

[Scood]

Stacked butterfly effect?

i.e. that jumping back to the last days of the ACW would introduce a "you" that has a small (but non-zero) possibility of perturbing the immediate future merely by 'being' where one hadn't been before.  (Increased if you go back with the express intention, and resources, to swing the war, but for now let's not ascribe such motives.)  But as more time passes from your arrival, the perturbations build up to cause many changes to Today's history.  And if you arrive a year or two prior to the war then there's more chance that the people you met in turn met (or didn't meet) other people, or other effects[1] and it's not just post-ACW times that change, but could be the outcome of the ACW itself.  Arrive at the time of the Revolution and it's even more likely.  Arrive even earlier and even more so.   (With all due apologies for this English person's ignorance of a lot of the nuances of your Rebellious Colony's recent history; i.e. the last two centuries or so... )




Still, while I'm not averse to acknowledging the existence of time-travellers, I find the overwhelming elegance of a stable time-loop just too obvious an idea to discard as an untested hypothesis.  Rather than reject this guy on the grounds of physical impossibility, I'm actually closer to rejecting his ideas because they make the universe look just too messy, if true.  Something with a Traveller experiencing something more akin to a Twelve Monkeys situation (not necessarily aware of the fact that what was in his Future self's past is going to be part of his Past self's future, but it's certainly possible) wouldn't arouse anything like the same level of doubts.

not exactly, what i was trying to get at.
John Titor's time machine has a range of 60 or so years before the worldline becomes completely different and its not necessarily that people make that change time, sometimes the change is just an atom moved 2 centimeters to the left. or the wind blowing pollen to a different flower.
 apparently in his worldline it is discovered by CERN that proves the existence of alternate universes. Keep in mind that to John Titor his views ARE proven, it would be like going back to the 1500's and claiming the earth was a sphere rather than flat.
im saying that if you traveled back in time to when the American civil war was supposed to occur, you've traveled so far away from your original worldline, that you may find out that there was no United states to begin with.

If that's the claim of the alleged Traveller, it's one possibility.  Without spending all (indeed any!) of my time looking through JT's writings on the subject, would anyone who has care to enlighten me as to whether the new timeline "branch" is supposed to be completely in addition (and parallel to) to the still-thriving original timeline, prune that timeline at the point of departure or to entirely remove the 'false start' branch immediately at the point of arrival, so that there is just one, crooked, branch with the otherwise inexplicable addition of the Traveller at the elbow of that crookedness?

Are you asking about why he was time travelling in the first place? You really should consider reading his posts, if anything they are very entertaining.
heres a quote from him

The first "leg" of my trip was from 2036 to 1975. After two VGL checks, the divergence was estimated at about 2.5% (from my 2036). I was "sent" to get an IBM computer system called the 5100. It was one the first portable computers made and it has the ability to read the older IBM programming languages in addition to APL and Basic. We need they system to "debug" various legacy computer programs in 2036. UNIX has a problem in 2038.

the rest of you're post was a compilation of movie and short story references. Of which i found irrelivent.

[Max White]

He is that jerk that killed it for the rest of us. I mean we all agreed that nobody get's to go back in time unless it is the only means of survival for the human race, forward trips only! Then he had this idea that as an extra safe guard he would go back and fake all these predictions, so that if anybody else went back to try and claim to be a travler and produce the same diagrams, then nobody would beleive them.

Problem is, now we will never be able to warn people about any end of the world stuff. He should of thought it through more!

[Scood]

I appreciate the position you are in but you must realize that I am not affected in the least if you believe me or not.

Keep in mind that since this is not his worldline, it does not matter what happens to this one as it will change nothing in his worldline.

[Max White]

He always said he didn't care for this world line, but I know he was more attached to it then he let on. He would not have been such a great asset to us if he didn't see fit to. Although he was always so sure he knew best.