True or False time machine?

Discussion in 'Intelligence & Machines' started by The Evil Sponge, Aug 4, 2003.

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  1. The Evil Sponge Registered Member

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    Hey guys, we're having a debate on www.tabcrawler.com whether or not this machine is possible for time travel, I figured you guys would be able to find the pros and cons about this guys story of time travel. He has made some predictions about WWIII, how AMerica will go to a civil war in 2004, how the Soviet Union will attack US major cities in 2015 etc...

    Let me know what you all think!!!!

    Here's the link : http://johntitor.com/
     
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  3. ic0n612 Registered Member

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    im very interested in this as well
     
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  5. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    This one has been discussed many times, not about that particular individuals but many like them.

    There are many points over the physics of time travel and how intense any calcuations would have to be to utilise the particular methods that are usually theorized about.

    One major point is the shear fact that if timetravel was proven to exist, don't you think the time traveller would have regards to a code of conduct.

    Take for instance, You travel back a few years and you have taken with you a gadget that hasn't been designed yet or even the plans to that gadget. You now have the possible means to generate a "hostile takeover" of someones design, before it ever got produced.

    The problem is this would cause a parallel, since the universe you were in would have a company with people employed doing jobs, who now in the universe you moved to have to get jobs elsewhere, this would displace the universe with a giant "Butterfly Effect".

    The problem there would be that if you were the designer of the device, what would you then do since your idea is now stolen, you life would have a void, perhaps a dangerous one at that.
    (In the sense that you might feel as if you are missing something that could progress to what would be seen from another party as a psychological problem)

    Not to forget the other paradoxes that could occur. Lets say you send a design back to before it was designed and you then enchance it. Once it's enchanced you send it back again and enchance it some more. Before you know it, you've got technology that LOOKS alien, albeit it's just been Cycled for longer.

    The last one is the one usually used to justify it's none existance, If it was possible we would already know about it. (Somebody would bring a hoverboard back lol)
     
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  7. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Not possible at all......

    Time travel isn't possible with the physics we understand today. Everything is only a sci-fi thriller at best. You can't go back and since time hasn't happened yet in the future you can't go forward.
     
  8. The Evil Sponge Registered Member

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    Re: Not possible at all......

    It hasn't happened in OUR timeline yet. If he is from the future, than the physics we understand today would be obsolete considering he is from the future. Now if it were that he was from the past, I could see how that would make sense.

    Your answer was very vague and seemed very closed minded, if you wouldn't mind, please share some reasons.

    P.S. Stryderunknown, thanks for your response, it was very informative!
     
  9. KitNyx Registered Senior Member

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    My favorite? Scotty's justification for giving away the transparent aluminum...How quaint. Is everyone confused?

    - KitNyx
     
  10. KitNyx Registered Senior Member

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    I read through the mentioned website, and John Titer did his homework. There are places that he gets very vague and, in my opinion, unversed in his story, but overall, he had to have at least a fundamental understanding of what would be involved (or maybe he just read "Timeline" by Micheal Crichton).

    My main problem is not his explaination of the mechanics. I have a problem with the future he (supposedly) comes from. Granted there is a 2-4% divergence in his history and ours, but I really do not see how his present could evolve from ours in only 30 years. The way he described that people thought and behaved, I do not think it is possible in such a short amount of time.

    - KitNyx
     
  11. hotsexyangelprincess WMD Registered Senior Member

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    even if time-travel was possible it wouldn't be good :m:
     
  12. splunk yo' mama so fat... Registered Senior Member

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    I find it hard to believe that something we regard as totally impossible now could, in thirty years, be commonplace. not so much the fact that our views could be flipped upside-down, since that has happened before, but the fact that it will be COMMONPLACE. :bugeye:

    I mean, with any luck, that'll fall within my lifetime. I cannot accept the fact that the government would reveal a weapon like that so soon.

    the real reason his story is unbelievable is the fact that he posted it.

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    now, it seems to me, if i were fighting a world war, the LAST thing i would want to do is to go back in time, and let my enemies know of an amazing weapon that would be attainable within half a century. wouldnt that just make the 'bad guys' redouble their efforts?

    i wish i knew john titor, i bet he has all kinds of crazy stories about the people he fooled.
     
  13. The Evil Sponge Registered Member

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    I myself am pretty optimistic about things like this, not for or against, but I sit on the fence and like to observe.

    What I do think is that it is possible for the future to be that different, lets look back 30+3 years to 1970, it was a VERY different world. Who would have ever thought about the internet...BOTTLED WATER....MORE THAN GASOLINE!?!?!??
     
  14. ic0n612 Registered Member

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    we'll see in a few years if it was a hoax or not

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    now, his equations, physics, his technique for travelling through time... can you guys find any discrepancies? if anybody could, it would be the genious on this board
     
  15. The Evil Sponge Registered Member

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    I'll second that!

    P.S. Its genius

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  16. Giant_Robot Registered Member

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    Time-traveling doesn't, and never will exist. Allow me to elaborate.

    Lets say you time travel into the past, to do something. You do this medial task, and then where are you? If you get what I'm trying to say, then.......you just get it. And trust me, THESE physics will always exist......
     
  17. G71 AI Coder Registered Senior Member

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  18. ic0n612 Registered Member

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    typo
     
  19. The Evil Sponge Registered Member

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    No worries

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  20. ericfost Registered Senior Member

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    I thought of something, I don't know if it qualifies as a discrepancy, but here goes. According to his theory, there are an infinite number of parallel universes with all possible outcomes (something which I had known about and believed before I read over his story). Assuming that is true, in the universes John Titor exists and posts his story on the internet, some of them he is a time traveler from the future, but in others he is a hoaxer. Now, since there is an infinite number of possibilities, the following happens in some universes (rather cut and dry, of course): he is a time traveler who makes no sense and no one believes him; he is a time traveler who makes plausible predictions and people believe him; he is a hoaxer who makes no sense and no one believes him; he is a hoaxer who makes plausible predictions and people believe him. Since we are a universe where he makes sense and his theories hold true, that eliminates the other general categories of universes. So we exist in a universe where he is either a talented hoaxer or a real time traveler. I know this seems like a lot of bs just to get to this point, but you have to think of it like this to understand my next point. Since we now have two categories, hoaxer and time traveler, there are again two (very general) ways we can break those down: he is a time traveler who makes predictions that don't come true (by some fault of his own or a difference between our universes); he is a time traveler who makes predictions that come true; he is a hoaxer who makes predictions that don't come true (which would seem logical); he is a hoaxer who makes predictions that come true. It seems improbable for someone who is actually a hoaxer to make correct predictions, but since there are an infinite number of universes, in some of them this actually happens! So you see it doesn't really matter whether or not his predictions come true or not, because according to the theories he puts forth, he could still be a hoaxer.

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  21. ericfost Registered Senior Member

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    A code of conduct would not do anything, because every possible thing that a time traveler could do, he will in some universe.

    I don't think you understand the idea of infinite parallel universes. There are no paradoxes in the model because everything that could possibly happen HAS and WILL. You can send a design back to yourself without running into the so called "free lunch" problem of YOU not actually creating it because YOU did, in the other universe. Just like you can go back and kill your grandfather, Einstein, Jesus, hell you could kill everyone if you wanted and it would have no effect on your universe because it happened in a different one.

    Ah, but that is a double edged sword. Since there is an infinite number of universes, some of them no one time travels to ever. This could be one of those, we don't know yet, but I don't think we can rule it out.
     
  22. KitNyx Registered Senior Member

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    I missed it. Did anyone see where he explained why he is in OUR time? He talked about going to the 70's, but I do not remember reading why he is in our time.

    You know when I first read his information, I was impressed by some of the technical insights, but now that I have thought about it I have to go with my second reaction...the guy just read "Timeline" by Micheal Crichton or watched "The One". Our understanding of quantum mechanics, singularities, and multiverses is just too limited for us to create such a device in 30 years. I know, but look how much we have done in the past 30 years...I can not believe it. Our understanding of the universe is just too incomplete...

    Think about it...We are just beginning research into research teleportation and have only met limited success in teleporting single photons, and this is with a specially built machine at either end of the experiment. See link:

    http://travel.howstuffworks.com/teleportation.htm

    Here is a quote from the article:

    "For a person to be transported, a machine would have to be built that can pinpoint and analyze all of the 1028 atoms that make up the human body. That's more than a trillion trillion atoms. This machine would then have to send this information to another location, where the person's body would be reconstructed with exact precision. Molecules couldn't be even a millimeter out of place, lest the person arrive with some severe neurological or physiological defect."

    "If such a machine were possible, it's unlikely that the person being transported would actually be "transported." It would work more like a fax machine -- a duplicate of the person would be made at the receiving end, but with much greater precision than a fax machine. But what would happen to the original? One theory suggests that teleportation would combine genetic cloning with digitization.

    In this biodigital cloning, tele-travelers would have to die, in a sense. Their original mind and body would no longer exist. Instead, their atomic structure would be recreated in another location, and digitization would recreate the travelers' memories, emotions, hopes and dreams. So the travelers would still exist, but they would do so in a new body, of the same atomic structure as the original body, programmed with the same information."

    I realize that now I am going to get the arguement that I am talking about teleportation not time travel. There really is not a difference. The first step toward time travel (classical sense) is teleportation. I say this because they are the same thing. Both teleportation and time travel are non-contiguous movements through spacetime. Teleportation is movement through the 3 expanded spacial dimensions; time travel is movement through the 1 expanded dimension of time. I do not think we are going to build a machine in the next thirty years that will let us do this. (much less a portable one, or one that will allow us to transmit information at faster then the speed of light).

    It could also be argued that this portable machine of his would need to be able to find the location of a parallel world in the multiverse. Not only finding a similar world, but a world with a similar timeline. Mentioning timelines...I do not see how his device could compute the amount of discrepency between our timeline and his. This would require knowing the location of every atom/ subatomic particle on Earth at this point of our timeline as well as this point in his history, then it could figure a percent discrepency.

    Well, I could keep going, but I think I made my point. I am not saying any of this is impossible. I am only saying that I do not see it as a possibility in our immediate future, and by his own admission he comes from a world with a very similar timeline.

    - KitNyx
     
  23. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    Well those are some pretty interesting predictions, especialy considering the fact that there is no more Sovient Union. . . this guy needs to bone up on his history before he goes predicting the future.
     
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