John Titor and time travel

A word of caution: this is a pretty big post so dont start on this unless you have atleast 15-20mins to spare. If you do read through this just sit back and relax, it'll be fun and you wont be disappointed especially if you are a fantasy or mystery freak.

"Some folks at MIT are holding a time-travelers' convention. The idea is to make it so famous and so widely-known that even thousands of years in the future, people will still know exactly when and where this time-traveler convention went down, and will all come travel to it at some point in their illustrious time-traveling careers. For those interested in attending, it's on May 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC) in the East Campus Courtyard at MIT. 42:21:36.025N, 71:05:16.332W (42.360007,-071.087870 in decimal degrees)."

Time travel? Can we travel in time just for the heck of it or to try and set things right? You would probably say that if you could, you might wish to see the birth of Renaissance, the Russian and French Revolution, the Jallianwallah Bagh. If you have any pretensions of being righteous you might want to prevent the murder of Gandhi or maybe kill Hitler or prevent the nuclear holocaust. But, are you sure that Hitler wasnt killed by a time traveller who decided to stop him before more Jews could be prosecuted? Is time travelling really travelling in time or travelling through space and time to reach a different dimension, a parallel world? Maybe the Asimov fans could counter this. What if you could travel at the speed of light to travel in the future or travel through a black hole to travel back in time?

Theres always the timeline to worry about. Let us suppose a close friend of yours or a family member died a few years back through unnatural circumstances, if you can go back in time and prevent it from happening, how will the timeline be affected? For example, a 20 year old has missed his Dad since birth, who died in an accident, if this fatalistic passage in time could be avoided how will the timeline change. (Check out a movie called frequency) If you change your own past can you go back to your own future to reap the benefits or would the new future have a new you to match it. I believe even if you can go back in time to change an event, you never change your past, but rather just chart a new future. Well if you think that it is impossible to change the past, then you have to conclude that it is impossible to change the future too because your future is somebody else's past. Which means the way your life turns out has already been determined and cannot be changed. Sounds fatalistic right? I hate it too.

While we talk about time travelling in the present age, what about the possibility of a time traveller from the future or from the past. But when he does, he'll instantly split the timeline, and the one he came from will become a parallel universe to the one he's in. Why? Because in order for a time traveler to notice a certain incident in the future, say for example the MIT convention, it will have to happen at least once without him. In fact, the moment he interacts with anything or anyone from our timeline when he arrives, is when the timeline splits, because he wasn't there the first time around. Also, when he goes back to the future, his timeline will have been altered and he may not even exist in the timeline he returns to; and he will have no way to get back to his own previous future timeline, unless he goes back again a little earlier and tells his alternate self to go back immediately without going to the convention. This gives rise to what is called as a grandfather paradox.

Who the hell is John Titor? Well, hes purpotedly a time traveller from the future. The first time I read about John Titor, I felt like when I first read about Nostradamus, UFOs and ghosts. The possibility of another existence, a parallel world, such a discovery could lead to tremendous possiblities. You see, Im sort of a fantasy freak and I like mysteries, especially where theres none. Alright no tarrying lets get back to John Titor. John Titor or Timetravel_0 as he was first known in Internet bulletin boards during 2000/2001, claimed to be a timetraveller from the year 2036. A soldier, he claims to have been recruited by a government time travel program along with three other soldiers to travel back in time to retrieve an IBM 5100 computer which he claimed was needed to "debug" various legacy computer programs in 2036. It is also useful to note that Titor stated in Internet bulletin boards, that he had no interest in "proving" that he was a time traveler, and many of his "predictions" were offhand comments or answers to specific questions. Titor himself explained that he was not going to give anyone information that they could use to save themselves or profit by. (Check Back to the Future)

Some of Titor's prediction: Between the years 2000 and 2036 Titor depicts what can be described as World War III followed by two decades of recovery. He claims that the genesis for World War III began in 2004 with the US presidential elections, which is followed by a second American Civil War leading to rising tensions in Middle East. This is followed by Russia nuking many US cities to put an end to the civil war and China effectively taking over Taiwan, Japan and Korea. He goes to point out that the new seat of power in the US become Nebraska and the society in 2036 pays more empahsis on religion, personal interaction and self succiency. However in his predictions, technology does not seem to be much affected with continuing advances in rapid transportation, space travel and genetic engineering. Much of his predictions and some omens that foretell the accuracy of his prediction can be found in a John Titor fans website. His fans are even called as Titorites.

What makes John Titor believable? Titor's story is accompanied by a well described theory of how exactly he manages to travel in time that is consistent with known concepts of time travel and black hole mechanics. He also talks about the philosophical impact on society created by the realisation of the existence of multiple timelines. The theory was supported by pictorial evidence, including schematics and photographs of his "time distortion gravity displacement" machine, as well as a photograph of it in use showing a laser beam being bent by the time displacement outside the 'vertical safe distance' of the time travelling vehicle.

What makes Titor sound like a charlatan? Why should Titor travel back in time to collect a 1975 computer considering the technological advances in 2036? Titor's internet postings are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and present-day linguists do not predict major changes in spelling or verb usage over the course of the next thirty years - such major linguistic changes take centuries to evolve. Titor's claims about future events are disconcertingly vague - if a project team was going to send somebody back in time, surely they would send back a person who had at the very least a basic grasp of recent history, including concrete facts such as significant dates, persons, and events from 1998-2036. His failure to "predict" 9/11 is seen as a glaring oversight. Some label Titor as an American internet radical along the line of militias existent during the Clinton administration. Scientists and physicists who analysed the science involved in Titor's time travel explanations, state it is impossible, both in theory and practice. Titor's story, many claim, plagiarizes older science novels to construct his time travelling stories and the similarity to the storyline of Twelve Monkeys is quite striking. Also, there is the entirely believable possibility that people are still extremely gullible to believe the plausibility of Titor's time travel and stories of a post-apocalypse world. Nostradamus and modern age city-grown Yagava Munivar's, are a testament to this fact.

To what extent do we believe John Titor and his prediction of the future. After all, he paints a pretty bleak picture of a harsh life after nuclear war and how water must be filtered to remove radioactive particles.

In Titor's own words:

As far as I can tell right now, you are headed toward the same events I would call "my history" in 2036. However, the very nature of time travel states that every worldline is unique and you are very much in control of what you do and how you get there.

You are able to change your worldline for better or worse just as I am.
Therefore, any "prediction" I might make has a slight chance of being incorrect anyway and you now have the ability to act on it based on what I've said. Can you stop the war before it gets here? Sure. Will you do it? Probably not.

Yes, it's very possible that what I say would spin your future off into a different direction.

John Titor and the compelling story around his "travel" is made of numerous damnable facts that are neither entirely believable nor entirely falsifiable. It is for this very reason many such stories will be built around him now and in the future, who knows maybe in the past in a different worldline and timeline.

Alright folks, as usual comments are invited for discussion. If we are unable to find a middle ground in our views and opinions through the blog lets meet in person. Just point out where you are at the moment in your galactic and solar orbits relative to a few quasars, please? I'll meet you in the past, present or future!!

P.S: for more information check out www.johntitor.com