The John Titor story

nyarlothothep

Do you believe in it?

I for one do because I had an existential experience when I was fifteen which resembles what Titor discussed with regards to time travel.

Here are the best parts of this interview with the webmaster of the John Titor site

some predictions in this part

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x-Uw9eJIhs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ptUXb-JkQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbbgeNtXevA&feature=related

One problem I have with the story is that if he went back in time and created an alternate universe, then how would he get back to his original universe? Why would he be sent back in the first place!?

But why believe him when none of his predictions ever came through?

How do you know that it wasn't some nutter on a chat room who happened upon a few randomers who bought his nonsense?

nyarlothothep

If you watch the vids you'll see that many of his predictions have come true.

The ones that haven't can be explained by the world line divergence.

nyarlothothep

nyarlothothep wrote: »

If you watch the vids you'll see that many of his predictions have come true.

The ones that haven't can be explained by the world line divergence.

Which predictions were these exactly?

Are they like Reinhardt's "predictions"?

And if we're now living in a completely different timeline how could he have gotten any prediction right?

I don't remember a civil war in America after the 04 elections or CERN discovering time travel in 2001 or Y2k doing anything.

So lets look at the "predictions".
Taking them from the second video you linked.
They start at about 4 minutes in.

CERN announcing they could create mini black holes: Fail. The LHC, which was not even under construction at the time, could only very theoretically create mini black holes. However they would not be stable lasting only mircoseconds. The LHC's purpose isn't to create these blackholes and there are no experiments that would be able to produce them on purpose
This was not announced by CERN but by people claiming the LHC will end the world.

The IBM 5100 thing: Fail. Was known in 1999 according to wikipedia.

A skyscraper missing in New York: Fail. It is one skyscraper not two and is missing not destroyed in a terrorist attack and there's no date for when it goes missing. Very very non specific prediction there.
But you'd think he'd say it exactly if he was from the future, 9/11 being the most important event of the last decade.

Constitution being eroded: Technically not fail. But when have conspiracy theorists not claimed this will happen? Again no specific details.

No WMDs in Iraq: Not fail. But then alot of people were saying that before the war.
The war which this guy failed to predict.

China in Space: Fail. China began testing it's manned capsule in 1999. Not exactly a leap to guess they'd be next in space.

Trouble with the Space shuttle: Fail. There's a huge difference between trouble and one blowing up .The Shuttle program has always been giving trouble.
You'd think he'd be more specific, like the name of the shuttle that blew up.

BSE coming to America: Fail. Not surprising that a disease spreads to America. And hasn't become a major problem.

Stephen Hawking on Black holes: Not sure what he's actually talking about here. Maybe someone could clarify?

Virus cells being use to treat cancer: Fail. According to Wikipedia it's been theorised since the 1950's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virotherapy

Female president in 2009: Fail obviously.

11 "predictions" and none of them really predict anything.
And certainly none that would convince anyone that this guy was from the future.

ilivetolearn

Very interesting but I personally don't buy it. Thanks for the introduction to the theory though.

espinolman

His time machine is the C204 made by General Electric - it's a box about the size of a large suitcase and it is very heavy - it operates by using two mini black holes which are electrified and rotated to create a gravitational field around the box and around the user and when you manipulate the field it allows you to travel into other dimensions .
I want one , how much are they to buy or do they lease them out ?

Mahatma coat

Dude, Payment terms are fairly standard

you 'borrow' one for a test drive, nip back to the Middle ages, deposit one Shekel with some 'International Financiers' and bingo bango, the device pays for itself on compound interest

Titor interests me as its one of a thousand stories of lost time travelers yet its one of the most plausible and also one of the most persistent.

from a purely theoretic POV tho it does raise some rather interistin issues regards Paradoxes

ilivetolearn

Based on King Mobs evaluation of the predictions versus the occurances the theory seems light weight enough.

Releastically a lot of the predictions are loose enough or wrong enough to indicate that some who enjoys various science fictions decided to get creative and amalgamate a few doomsday and conspiracy theories. I'm not saying it can't be true in the absence of evidence. I can no more prove that it was made up than I can prove it's true. All I'm saying is that I'm of the opinion that it's very likley this theory is false.

In my mind the only thing as bad as the alleged culprits found in conspiracy theorys (government, bankers, aliens, lizards etc.) are regular citizens (not neccessarily disinformation agents or shillers) who decide to completley fabricate conspiracy theories. Why would one activley choose to mislead the gullible masses?

When we assess the volume of theories out there it becomes apparent that of course a certain percentage (whether larger or smaller) of the theories are complete and utter fabrications. I'm confidant that we all accept that they simply can't all be true. I apreciate that their is always room for convergance but certain theories by default will negate others. The percentage of theories that are false can be segregated into two genres:

• theories that in proposition may simply be wrong but not knowingly or deliberatley misleading.
• theories that in proposition may be wrong but knowingly or deliberatley misleading.

The latter option concerns me. Karma needs to bitch slap these 'fabricators' to the canvas imo.

ilivetolearn

Mahatma coat wrote: »

you 'borrow' one for a test drive, nip back to the Middle ages, deposit one Shekel with some 'International Financiers' and bingo bango, the device pays for itself on compound interest

Pure genius.

Bingo, bango! Compound interest strikes again!

bonkey

ilivetolearn wrote: »

In my mind the only thing as bad as the alleged culprits found in conspiracy theorys (government, bankers, aliens, lizards etc.) are regular citizens (not neccessarily disinformation agents or shillers) who decide to completley fabricate conspiracy theories. Why would one activley choose to mislead the gullible masses?

There are two answers that immediately spring to mind:

1) Profit. There are those who are willing to create and/or push fabricated stories (conspiratorial or otherwise) because htey stand to gain from it...whether that be financially or simply through 15 minutes of fame.

2) The same reason(s) that people troll.

ilivetolearn

bonkey wrote: »

1) Profit. There are those who are willing to create and/or push fabricated stories (conspiratorial or otherwise) because they stand to gain from it...whether that be financially or simply through 15 minutes of fame.

Objectivley speaking (and despite being a fan) this suggestion could be applied to the beloved (depending on your tastes) Alex Jones. I've always been wary of his convictions when he seems so linear about Christianity and when not on one occasion have I heard him tackling extra-terrestial type theories. I'm going to presume that many skeptics believe that Jones is profiteering from his various sites and shows whereas the followers will opt for believing that that the financial support is a requirement.

bonkey wrote: »

2) The same reason(s) that people troll.

The reason being that... hmm, I can't think of a possible answer why an individual would want to indulge in such behaviour other than idle time or the endowment of a mental capacity of a unicellular organism.

bonkey

ilivetolearn wrote: »

The reason being that... hmm, I can't think of a possible answer why an individual would want to indulge in such behaviour other than idle time or the endowment of a mental capacity of a unicellular organism.

Its an intesting line of discussion, but I don't want to go too far off-topic.

Suffice it to say that whether you or I understand the motives of such people, I believe we can agree that they exist. Thus, neither of us would rule out the possibility that Titor was a creation of such individuals.

John Titor 2036

Howdie folks!

Undergod

There was an article about this in Nexus or Fortean Times I think, as I recall it's been confirmed a hoax.

Lone Kimono

John Titor 2036 wrote: »

Howdie folks!

Whats it like being famous?:D

Seriously though no I dont believe this story as if he was from the future how could he get so many predictions wrong as was shown above. That straight away is enough to show this is fake.

Diogenes

Lone Kimono wrote: »

Whats it like being famous?:D

Seriously though no I dont believe this story as if he was from the future how could he get so many predictions wrong as was shown above. That straight away is enough to show this is fake.

That and the fact that if you'd punch a hole in the space time continuum, would you really waste it posting a dozen posts on an Irish message board including the "music" forum, and a a thread on after hours saying "I like big boobs". Here

6th

Lads can we ignore the imposter and stick to the topic.

Diogenes

6th wrote: »

Lads can we ignore the imposter and stick to the topic.

The suggestion in your post is that there is a real John Titor from the future?

6th

Diogenes if I am posting in bold it means I am posting as a mod, not engaging in the topic itself. Please see the section of the charter re: discussing mod decissions in thread.

Now, back on topic.

Diogenes

6th wrote: »

Diogenes if I am posting in bold it means I am posting as a mod,

And how am I supposed to know this? I've checked the charter there is nothing about the font that lets someone know about a difference between a user and a mod.

not engaging in the topic itself. Please see the section of the charter re: discussing mod decissions in thread.

How pray tell was I supposed to know it was a mod decision?

Now, back on topic.

Okay are you just decreeing "our" John Titor isn't "the" John Titor. based on?

John Titor 2036

I am the real John Titor. Just because I like big boobs and have an Irish connection does nothing to disqualify the veracity of my identity. John Titor!

espinolman

John Titor 2036 wrote: »

I am the real John Titor. Just because I like big boobs and have an Irish connection does nothing to disqualify the veracity of my identity. John Titor!

OK , listen i will believe you if you give me this coming saturdays Lotto numbers , please send them to me by PM , thanks .;)

6th

Diogenes wrote: »

How pray tell was I supposed to know it was a mod decision?

I said to stay on topic. Continuing to argue with a mod on thread has earned you an infraction.

Lets review the evidence so far.
You have some predictions that everyone even believers agree are wrong, for example an American civil war in 2004 etc.
You have some predictions that some people believe but don't stand up to any scrutiny.
And then you only have the word of a guy on a discussion board.

I honestly have no idea how anyone can believe that John Titor is a time traveler.

DubTony

A fascinating piece of internet history. I remember coming across it around 2003. But seriously, why is it being discussed here. The fact is that someone went online in 2000, called himself John Titor, and posted a load of bunkum about having travelled back in time to a parallel universe. The different "wordline" scenario was very cleverly used as the perfect way to ensure that the content of this hoax could never be realistically challenged, as we can't prove that there aren't alternate universes.

There's the very real possibility that many of the people who posted questions to the bulletin board were a small number of friends who collaborated in the hoax by registering lots of different names. He could even have registered a bunch of names and posted questions himself.

But truly, the most inconceivable aspect of the whole thing is that it ever became a story at all, and that there are people out there who feel the need to try to "disprove" this obvious hoax by picking apart his "predictions".

The plot has officially been lost.

edit: "Predictions" isn't really the correct term as the supposed events were based on the history of his supposed alternate universe.

DubTony

DubTony wrote: »

But truly, the most inconceivable aspect of the whole thing is that it ever became a story at all, and that there are people out there who feel the need to try to "disprove" this obvious hoax by picking apart his "predictions".

The plot has officially been lost.

It seemed however that nyarlothothep was quite convinced by the prediction presented in the youtube videos he linked.
Just like the people who were discussing on the same videos.

It took all of ten minutes to check these claims on wikipedia and find they're completely baseless.

Unfortunately people don't seem to critically evaluate stuff like this.

Undergod

Did the original John Titor posts present these stories as predictions? Cause that'd be stupid, if he also said he went back to an alternate universe.

Where are the original posts?

toiletduck

Ok so some people say that his predictions didn't come to pass due to a divergence in the timeline.... Well couldn't he have very easily prophecised a natural event which would have been beyond the scope of his 'pollution' of the timeline e.g. the tsunami of 2004?

6th

toiletduck wrote: »

the tsunami of 2004?

But some people believe that was a man made disaster using some alien tech machine.

toiletduck

Forgot about that. Although I thought it was Israel doing nuke tests :pac:

bonkey

toiletduck wrote: »

Ok so some people say that his predictions didn't come to pass due to a divergence in the timeline.... Well couldn't he have very easily prophecised a natural event which would have been beyond the scope of his 'pollution' of the timeline e.g. the tsunami of 2004?

Nope...and i wouldn't matter if it was natural, an alien device, Israeli nuclear testing, or anything else.

Titor originally claimed that the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum physics is the correct one.

This, in effect, says that every outcome occurs to every quantum event, resulting in "many worlds" (to put that particular infinity mildly).

In essence, there are worlds where the tsunami occurred, and worlds where it didn't (regardless of the cause). The same woul dhold true of any prediction.

Thus, while it would be conceivable for the year 2000 to have been visited by a John Titor from a future, the many worlds interpretation allows that we find ourselves in a different world to that from which Titor came from.

What this does prevent is someone claiming to be the same John Titor posting from 2036 (or whenever) to boards.ie in 2009. Even if we accept the validity of the original Titor posts in 2000/2001, we are no longer on the timeline which led to that Titor's world, and therefore no longer lie in his past.

There could be another Titor posting, who - being aware of the correctness of the Everett-Wheeler model (the many worlds interpretation) - would understand that another Titor had posted from another timeline.

The notion, however, that this "intervention" in the past had changed the timeline, and altered the predictions...but the major ones would still occur...or that things would reconverge...that would require that the many worlds interpretation be completely wrong...which would be in contrast with Titor's own claims

I think what would be both convincing and possible would be if he was able to supply exact details of undiscovered astronomical events.

But think the original John Titor is about as real as our one.
They certainly have the same amount of supporting evidence.

ilivetolearn

The theory sounds like a premise for a Nicholas Cage film.

Narrator: "Nichola Cage travels through time to change time to save the world as John Titor! One man, infinite worlds."

*cue latin chanting music and end with a close up of Cage and his futuristic hybrid mohawk and mullet*

Titor/Cage: "Time waits for no man."

*Fade out*

I came across the following contact details for the characters and his familes attorney:

Law Offices of Lawrence H. Haber, PA
Larry Haber
PO Box 470171
Celebration, FL 34747-0171
407-566-0181 Fax 407-566-0182
larryhaber@aol.com

No answer on the number in any case.

GuanYin

bonkey wrote: »

Nope...and i wouldn't matter if it was natural, an alien device, Israeli nuclear testing, or anything else.

Titor originally claimed that the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum physics is the correct one.

Were this true, and were time travel possible, why would you be certain to hit your own time-line when you travel back? Surely you are at risk of landing in any one of the parallel "many-worlds" that have diverged.

In essence too, wouldn't this eliminate paradox?

bonkey

IAMAQP, but my take would be to answer both Yes and No (look - a quantum funny!).

It would be certainly possible to "hit" your own time-line, in that you have one and only one history.

However, having hit that, then you would move forwards through every possible future resulting from the point-of-origin that you hit.

In other words, if we assume that time-travel is possible, Titor could travel into his own past. He would be assured that one of the infinite number of worlds which then resulted from wherever he arrived would, in fact, be the path which led back to his future. There would also be an infinite number which didn't. In some of those, a paradox could still occur. Titor would know that his timeline had no paradox on it, so his timeline was safe, but in the infinite number of worlds which would result from his arrival in his past, paradoxes would certainly occur in a subset (also infinite?) thereof.

DubTony

Well, while we're on the subject of paradoxes or potential paradoxes, what if all the infinite worlds had only one actual internet which was effectively a place where all worlds came together, would that mean that Titors posts could have an effect on the future or am I just drunk and rambling?

espinolman

espinolman wrote: »

OK , listen i will believe you if you give me this coming saturdays Lotto numbers , please send them to me by PM , thanks .;)

I'm still waiting for them lotto numbers !

ilivetolearn

DubTony wrote: »

Well, while we're on the subject of paradoxes or potential paradoxes, what if all the infinite worlds had only one actual internet which was effectively a place where all worlds came together, would that mean that Titors posts could have an effect on the future or am I just drunk and rambling?

Interesting but anyone familiar with servers and rooting would become almost immediately aware of such an occurrence. Sure theres always a workaround but it would relatively be more plausible to suggest that Titor could remotely access our internet from his time.

Undergod

DubTony wrote: »

Well, while we're on the subject of paradoxes or potential paradoxes, what if all the infinite worlds had only one actual internet which was effectively a place where all worlds came together, would that mean that Titors posts could have an effect on the future or am I just drunk and rambling?

Well, yeah it could, but that's a ridiculous idea, and not the case so we can safely ignore it.