Inside Darren

That’s right: This blog is officially closed. The comments have been turned off, and no new posts will be appearing after this one. “But wait!”, you say, “Where can I get my daily dose of Darren-ness?!”

Fear not, my friends! DarrenConley.com is now up and fully running! All of the posts from this blog that you know and love have been transferred over, and the site design has been vastly improved. If you have a link to this blog saved in your bookmarks, or linked to from one of your posts, please be so kind as to point your browser to www.darrenconley.com instead.

It’s been a fun ride at this address, but the party is only going to get better at the new site, so stop reading this, and get your virtual hindquarters over to www.darrenconley.com!

Well my friends, it’s been a fun ride on this blog. However, I must now announce that this will be the second-last post here, since I’m currently in the process of moving everything over to www.darrenconley.com. The free hosting offered at this current site only allows me about 5kb more storage space, and that covers maybe one picture. So within the next few days (hopefully) all of the content from this site will be up and running at darrenconley.com, where new posts will appear.

This is my first time paying for hosting from somebody, and putting up my own domain, so it may take me some time to figure everything out. But when I do, let me assure you, it will be worth it! There’ll be a whole new look, entertaining content appearing on a regular basis, and posts that are short enough for people to actually read them! There’s a good chance that my comments from this site won’t make the transition to the new one though, so you’ll all have to comment more on darrenconley.com to make up for it.

So, stay tuned for the big announcement that the new site is up, and if you’re bored, you can always read about time travel.

After having considered the complexity of the issues surrounding this topic, there is one big question that we have to ask: Is this for real? Can I accept the possibility of the existence of multiple worldlines, people traveling between these worldlines, and (for North Americans) the chance that there may be a nuclear disaster in the very near future? Or do I write off all of this stuff as the work of a mischievous (though extremely intelligent) hoaxer?

1. His story is internally coherent.

Given the multitude of events and dates given by Titor, as well as the descriptions of future political systems, the functioning of the time travel device, the nature of his worldview based on his personal history, and his purpose for time-traveling, there were many MANY details which John could have bungled or mis-referenced in his various postings. However, he never contradicted himself or presented points of view which were inconsistent with his professed story. The only accusation which could possibly be raised in this area was the fact that one of his posts claimed 2004 as the beginning of the American civil war, while the other posts said 2005. John actually addressed this discrepancy, saying that the 2004 date was a typo.

2. He provided a reasonable explanation for the physics of a functional time-travel device.

Instead of whipping up some kind of “magic” piece of equipment (Back to the Future’s “Flex Capacitor”) or wonky explanation (Star Trek IV’s “Fly around the sun”), John Titor provided an explanation of the real-world physics behind his time travel device, and provided links to help substantiate his explanation. If he was a hoaxer, he did an awful lot of physics homework.

3. He provided photos and diagrams of the time travel device.

Instead of just posting a video that could easily have been faked, or a picture of some contraption that could have been assembled in his backyard, John posted multiple photographs of his time travel device, as well as several pages of the manual for the device, including diagrams of the singularity fields, parts descriptions, and internal cutaways. If he was a hoaxer, he did an awful lot of work in assembling the device, photographing it, creating the manual diagrams, and drawing the intricate details of the cutaway.

4. He spoke with a high degree of intelligence.

This is not to say that there aren’t intelligent hoaxers out there, but we would expect someone chosen by a military unit in the future for a time-travel mission to have a high-degree of intelligence, in order to successfully complete his mission. A reading of a random sampling of John Titor’s posts shows that he was no dummy, especially when you compare his words with some of the less intelligent others who tried to match wits with him online. There are a lot of idiots perpetrating hoaxes on the internet (just read some of your junkmail sometime), and John Titor was no idiot.

5. His behaviour was consistent with the culture he claimed to have come from.

John Titor allegedly came from a world that was sick of war, centred around family and community contribution, heavily concerned with the environment and civil liberty, and filled with people who had all suffered some sort of trauma either before or after the nuclear disaster. All of his mannerisms, thoughts, and expressed feelings were consistent with someone who had grown up in such a culture. He wondered why we don’t stop to help people whose cars have broken down. He stayed close to his family in our worldline. He spoke often about constitutional rights. And, like all people who leave their home culture (no matter how bad it might be), he said he was very anxious to return to it, despite the many amenities that our worldline had to offer.

6. He provided descriptions of events as if he were actually there.

In my linguistics studies, I did some work in forensic linguistics which touched on witness accounts given to police officers, and the criteria for determining their accuracy. When people deliberately give false accounts of events, they often add-in details which actual witnesses would not remember, or neglect to mention things that would have been obvious to those who were there. John Titor’s descriptions of events (the civil war, experiencing time travel, etc.) are all very consistent with the way that people truthfully describe events. In the interest of saving space, I will just offer one example of this: John describes the initial sensation of using the time travel device as “similar to rising quickly in an elevator”. No long, intricate details that would seem made up, but instead, a simple physical description that clearly evokes the intended idea, and is in line with how someone would relate a similar experience in real life.

7. He had a set of ethical principles regarding disclosure of future events which he consistently maintained.

John refused to give people information which might cause someone to avoid death as a result of foreknowledge of a calamity (natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc.) John’s reasoning for this was that he didn’t want to be responsible for who might live or die as a result of his actions. Giving out such information might save the life of the next would-be Hitler, or cause an important world-leader to lose their life as a result (i.e. Someone is convinced that Bush starts a civil war and tried to assassinate him, etc.) Whereas a hoaxer might be tempted to throw out this kind of information just for the “wow factor” of it, or to laugh at people as they re-schedule their vacations, John refused to participate in this. The only events he spoke of were events which would not take us by surprise, even if we DIDN’T know about them beforehand.

8. He made predictions which were verifiable.

John spoke about events which would be impossible to miss when they happened in the near future (the big ones being the American civil war, and the nuclear attack in 2015). Of course, speaking from 2006, it’s another matter as to whether or not the civil war prediction has now been falsified (more about that later in this post), but at the very least, John left himself open for a certain amount of refutation. A hoaxer would likely try avoid any possibility of being proven wrong.

9. His reason for time-traveling was believable.

John’s mission was to pick up an IBM 5100 computer from 1975 (as outlined in my earlier post Time Travel 1 - The Story). Given the nature of the history of John Titor’s worldline, the truth of the UNIX Y2K38 issue, and the design and capabilities of the IBM 5100 computer, John’s explanation about needing this computer to help debug some legacy systems in the future makes sense. What’s even more interesting is the fact that the IBM 5100’s ability to translate between outdated programming languages from the 1960s was purposely not published by IBM, and only came to public knowledge when John Titor made his claims about this computer’s capabilities online. This article explains the situation in more detail. If John was creating a hoax, he would have to have had access to this information from some other, limited source.

10. He did not attempt to make money off of his story.

This is the biggest credibility issue for me. If you’re going to go to all this trouble to perpetrate a hoax, you might as well see some cash for your efforts. As a time traveler, John claimed to be online so that he could archive vast amounts of information, learn about our culture, and have a little bit of personal interaction with interesting individuals outside of his family members. As a hoaxer, what would he gain, personally, for 5 months worth of online discussions? The only possible reward would be some kind of feeble joy in knowing he almost fooled a few people online into believing him. Would that be worth his time and trouble? And would that motive fit with the character traits he exhibited in his online discussions? It’s been over 5 years since John Titor last posted, and nobody has cashed in on this story yet. Would a hoaxer who is this intelligent not be able to come up with a way to profit from his fiction in 5 years?

1. Civil war did not start in 2005

Yeah, this is a big one. Titor said that there would be major events, beginning in 2005, which would lead to an American civil war that would last until 2015. Yet here we are in 2006, and while there are many people who hate President Bush, it doesn’t look like civil war is on the horizon (at least not for the near future). Now, having said that, there are 2 things I should point out: When the civil war in the former Yugoslavia began, it also came out of nowhere, so it’s not impossible that it could still happen in North America. Second, it could be that the small divergence between worldlines that Titor mentioned has lead to the avoidance of civil war in our worldline. It’s not hard to imagine that a slight shift in election outcomes from 2000 or 2004 (which were pretty much 50/50) could have lead to a much different situation today. But no matter how you cut it, this prediction did not happen as Titor described.

2. He didn’t mention anything about 9/11

Since Titor was posting in late 2000 and early 2001, many people have mentioned that it would have made sense for Titor to mention the 9/11 attack. Certainly, for many North Americans in 2006, there is no event of greater historical weight. However, it has also been mentioned that if Titor did indeed live through a 10 year civil war, as well as a nuclear war, then perhaps 9/11 was of relatively less importance in Titor’s mind, and therefore not worth mentioning. It also may not have been in line with his code of ethics (mentioned in point number 7 above) to mention such an event.

3. While it would have taken a lot of work, it is possible to fake his documentation and device construction

Whenever movies or TV shows are being produced, authentic-looking equipment is manufactured and documentation is written up and printed to make the story believable. The equipment in Ghostbusters looked as real as John Titor’s machine, and one can find dozens of books with cutaways and construction diagrams of Star Trek technology, even though none of it is real. Granted, the entertainment industry throws big money at professional designers and prop artists to actualize their fictional ideas, so whoever conceived the Titor technology either had big money to get their ideas produced, or had a huge amount of artistic and technical talent, beyond their capacity for fictional writing, physics theory, and intellectual interaction. It’s unlikely, but it is possible.

4. The physics of his time travel device is still up for debate

Reputable physicists have looked over the theory behind the functioning of Titor’s time travel device, and some have contradicted Titor’s words. Most of the physics involved is beyond me, so it may be best if I just point you to a link that deals with these questions. The only thought I would add here is the idea that perhaps there may still be room for modern physics theories to advance and incorporate what Titor describes in the future, but until we have some experimental evidence of the existence of microsingularities, Titor’s time machine is still a fictional concept.

5. The CERN accelerator which John said created the microsingularities in 2001/2002 is still not online

According to this article the new, larger particle accelerator at CERN is set to come online in 2007. This is considerably later than the date mentioned by John Titor. The only ways around this problem are either to say that this is another worldline difference, or that perhaps CERN was doing research with a larger accelerator that is kept secret from the public. Either explanation is a stretch.

6. Contains plot elements contained in many sci-fi stories

Finally, the story of the future that Titor paints has many common elements with stories seen in science fiction literature and movies over the years. Back to the Future featured a time machine in a car. The Terminator movies featured time travelers warning of future nuclear disaster. Star Trek featured an episode where a character was traveling between different parallel realities. All of the elements to construct John Titor’s story were in existence long before his story came out. However, one should remember that fiction is compelling because it is based on real-life situations and theories. Just because Titor’s story shares common elements with fictional stories, we can’t say on that basis alone that his story is false.

It has become clear to me, through reading people’s responses to the John Titor story online, as well as through having various discussions about this material with my friends, that everyone approaches this story with certain set beliefs, and tends to look at the content of this story through the lens of trying to confirm their own preconceptions, and refute opposing opinions. Those who want time travel to be true eagerly search out clues that confirm the validity of John Titor, while those who already believe time travel to be impossible hunt for inconsistencies and alternative explanations with equal diligence.

But maybe the question that we have to ask ourselves is: Why do I want to believe or disbelieve this story in the first place? Why would I want time travel to be possible, or why would I want it to be impossible, and go to great lengths of argumentation and dialog to prove my opinion?

As someone who is leaning more toward the “want it to be possible” side of things, let me share a little from my own thoughts. All of us have lived lives full of tough decisions, and troubling regrets. We often ask “what if” questions, and wonder what direction our lives might have taken if we had chosen a different path. If time travel is possible, with its infinite number of worldlines, there would be opportunities to see the realization of the other outcomes of choices we’ve left in our past. We could see loved ones who are not longer with us. We could experience major events outside of our lifetimes that helped shape society. And we could see how our descendants turned out after our lifetime has ended.

The realization of time travel would mean that our experiences would not have to be limited to the small slice of history that our birthdate and state of health offer us. We could find answers to questions about our lives and the nature of the human experience that are beyond the grasp of those bound to a linear temporal existence.

On the other hand, for those who would like to deny the existence of time travel, this story gives rise to thoughts that are more troubling than comforting. Many people in this category are simply afraid of being duped, and would rather write off the idea of time travel than find themselves being “taken in” by a possible hoax. Since the notion of time travel as a reality is not generally believed by the public, it is safer to cast your vote with the majority than to go against the flow and risk public ridicule. Those who follow this mode of thought would have found themselves denying that the earth is round, or that it revolves around the sun, if they had lived a few hundred years ago. But, for the most part, maintaining this state of mind would keep you out of trouble in general society, and help you avoid any “dangerous new ideas”.

Another reason to disregard the possibility of time travel involves being afraid of the implications that time travel would have for ones established worldview. Am I prepared to accept a world where multiple realities exist, and where traveling between them is not impossible? How will this affect my notion of God, or of “self”? Is this world, this reality that I’ve spent my entire life participating in, more complex than my current worldview allows for? How far will I allow my conceptual boundaries to be pushed?

I again offer the analogy of the discovery of the heliocentric model of our solar system. The church was convinced that this idea would shatter people’s orthodox conceptions of God and reality, and would lead to subversiveness and philosophical ideas that would harm the fabric of society. But society gradually accepted this new idea, and the church survived with its theology intact (for the most part). If modern science confirms the existence of multiple realities, people will have to, once again, find a way to incorporate this fact into their worldview and beliefs. We should not let our fear of the unknown override our capacity to embrace what is true.

So, have we answered our question from the first paragraph of this post? Is this stuff true? Based on the evidence, I still believe that we can’t conclusively say. As much as I would like time travel to be a reality, we’ll never know for sure that it can happen unless we do it ourselves. So has all of this been a waste of time? Is there anything useful that we can take away from the John Titor story for us in the here and now? I believe there is.

1. Don’t neglect the ones you love

In a world torn by civil war, John grew closer to his family and understood the importance of having friends that he could trust with his life. In my life, I find that I rarely make time to connect with those I care about because I’m too busy watching movies, surfing the net, or dealing with the mundane daily minutiae. Civil war or not, having close friends brings rewards that far outweigh anything that a new movie or video game can provide. And if, heaven forbid, our society should find itself crashing around us (as has happened in many other “modern” cultures this past century), having close friends could literally be the difference between life and death.

2. Be open to new ideas and conversations

If you’ve taken the time to read through these time travel posts and looked through the John Titor material posted elsewhere, chances are that you’ve encountered many ideas and concepts that hadn’t occurred to you, or that at least forced you to ask yourself some questions that you had never dealt with before. Exposing ourselves to new ideas is a benefit unto itself, because it forces us to move beyond our daily thought routines and step into other, possibly healthier frames of mind. The fastest route to intellectual stagnation and atrophy is to keep your head down and your eyes closed to anything new. Exposing yourself to ideas that are “outside the box” of your daily experience, such as the John Titor story, will allow your critical and intellectual faculties to continue to grow.

3. Take responsibility for your role in society

Titor described the breakdown of American society as a result of the general populace being unaware of their civil liberties, and unable (or unwilling) to protect those liberties when they were being forcibly taken away. He also said that any one of us has the potential to create or prevent the wars and atrocities our future may hold. Titor’s community mentality and social conscience provides a strong example of how we should be willing to take responsibility for shaping our society. It isn’t enough to complain about how things SHOULD be - rather, we should be actively creating the future that we want to see.

4. Think about things that matter

There’s nothing like the thought of impending doom to make you take stock of what is truly important in your life. When Titor spoke of preparing for the civil war, and suggested considering what you would take with you if you had to leave your home in 10 minutes and never come back, it really made me look around my apartment and take stock of what I value. And what I discovered was that there was very little that I would truly miss. My DVD collection, Sega Dreamcast, or Linguistics textbooks could all be replaced, and would do me no good in terms of survival. It would be more a matter of staying healthy, knowing people you could go to for help, keeping a level head and a clear mind. Instead of focusing on buying the latest season of Battlestar Galactica, I should be focusing on being a physically, socially, intellectually, and spiritually healthy individual.

The beauty of the internet is that if my computer at home is destroyed, what I have posted on the internet will survive, and can be archived and searched in the future. Titor himself said that part of his mission was to archive as much relevant information as he could from the internet, and bring it back to his worldline. If time travel is real, there is a chance that this post could be read by someone in the future who has access to a time travel device. I would like to say that I’d be happy to be visited by someone from the future, preferably one of my own descendants. If you’re one of my children or grandchildren, you should have access to private information about me or my wife that nobody else would know, which could confirm your identity.

In the meantime, I’m going to work to create the future as best I know how.

Other John Titor Resources:
Message Forum Archive 1 - John’s posts from Oct 2000 to Jan 2001
Message Forum Archive 2 - John’s posts from Jan 2001 to Mar 2001
John Titor Photos - All of the Titor photos and diagrams with descriptions
John Titor’s Story - The Titor info collected and discussed on one website
Johntitor.com - A pro-Titor look at world events, with some archived material

Also in the Time Travel Series:
Time Travel 1 - The Story
Time Travel 2 - Worldlines
Time Travel 3 - The Device

Sticking with the theory that multiple worldlines DO exist, let me now show you how John Titor’s time travel device functions. I’ll first provide you with this link to some photos and diagrams of the machine. Next, I’ll quote John in his own words (from this forum archive). Finally, I’ll attempt to explain some of the more technical stuff as I best understand it. I have added links of my own to John’s words to give you some follow-up sources on the information presented.

Time travel is achieved by altering gravity. This concept is already proven by atomic clock experiments. The closer an observer is to a gravity source (high mass), the slower time passes for them. Traveling at high speeds mimics this effect which = the twin paradox of faster than light travel. However, this type of gravity manipulation is not sufficient to alter your world line.

The basic math to alter world lines exists right now. Tipler first described a working “time machine” through his theory of massive rotating spheres.

Certain types of black holes also exhibit the “time travel” abilities of Tipler cylinders. Kerr was one of the first to describe the dual event horizons of a rotating black hole. As with Tipler’s cylinders, it was possible to travel on a “time-like” trip through a Kerr black hole and end up in a different world line without being squished by the gravity of the singularity.

[Editor: Here are some links to stuff I’m not able to understand, but that relates to these ideas]
http://www.leonllo.freeservers.com/blackworm.html
http://www.astro.ku.dk/~cramer/RelViz/text/geom_web/node4.html

The mass and gravitational field of a microsingularity can then be manipulated by “injecting” electrons onto its surface. By rotating two electrified microsingularities at high speed, it is possible to create and modify a local gravity sinusoid that replicates the affects of a Kerr black hole.

[Editor: Here is a second quote from this forum archive]

The source of power for the C204 [Editor: The model number of the time travel device] that allows it to distort and manipulate gravity comes from two microsingularities that were created, captured and cleaned at a much larger and “circular” facility. The dual event horizons of each one and their mass is manipulated by injecting electrons onto the surface of their respective ergospheres. The electricity comes from batteries. The breakthrough that will allow for this technology will occur within a year or so when CERN brings their larger facility online.

Perhaps it would have been clearer to state that the math has been around since 1970. I would urge you to examine the properties of Kerr black holes and Tipler cylinders. An actual working prototype was first tested in 2034. On my worldline, time travel is not a public recreation but we are all aware that it exists. You may be disappointed to know that the ability to manipulate gravity is not the technical challenge that had to be overcome. Miniaturizing the clocks and sensors, creating clever ways to vent x-rays and creating a computer system dependable enough to calculate the changes required to the field were the main challenges. There are no missing pieces…just missing energy levels and a few very interesting subatomic particles.

One other technical piece of information regards the VGL system in the time travel device. The problem is this: Because the earth is rotating, and also moving around the sun, which is ITSELF moving etc., staying in the same place while traveling through time will most likely end up taking you to a location in outer space. The other issue involves materializing in the middle of a solid mass. The VGL system is an aspect of the time travel device which takes care of that. Here’s another quote where John Titor explains it.

The hard part of traveling through time is not the bending of gravity but the plotting of your course and holding to the basic “position” in your environment. This is done through a system called VGL (variable gravity lock). Basically, the unit takes a reading of the local gravity and samples it during the “trip” in pulses. If the gravity is too far off, the unit stops or reverses itself to the last sample period where the readings were correct. If there is some sort of failure, the unit shuts down and drops out to where ever you may be.

So, let’s try to make some of this make sense. First, Einstein theorized that gravity was not simply a force that was magically generated by large objects, but was rather a distortion of the space-time continuum created by mass itself. This idea is better explained here.

John Titor’s time travel device basically creates a specific type of gravitational field that warps space-time, and allows you to pass through to different worldlines. The gravitational field is created by two micro-singularities, which are like mini black holes. Black holes have been theorized for decades, and there are many observations of what are thought to be black holes in astronomy.

The idea behind a black hole is that when a star of sufficiently massive size uses up all of its hydrogen, it dies, and collapses in on itself under the weight of its own gravity. It is crushed down to a single point that shrinks beyond the size of subatomic particles, even though it has the same gravity of the star that created it. This infinitely small point then draws more matter into itself from the surrounding area, adding to its mass, and increasing its gravity. There is an area around the black hole called the event horizon, which is the distance from the singularity at which you’d have to be traveling at the speed of light in order to escape the gravitational pull of the black hole. Therefore everything that passes beyond the event horizon, including light, is drawn into the singularity forever.

Micro singularities are like black holes, but have much smaller mass, Their gravity is therefore much smaller than a singularity created by a collapsing star. I am not presently aware as to whether or not artificial micro singularities have been created, but I have come across articles about research into their possibility. According to John Titor, such singularities will be created in large particle accelerators, such as the one at CERN.

As you read above, his time travel machine is powered by two singularities which can be manipulated to produce the desired gravitational field required for travel between worldlines. If I understand it correctly, what are being manipulated are the rate of spin of the singularities, the mass of the singularities, and the electrical charge of the singularities (all with respect to each other), mainly by injecting them with electrons from a battery. Changing these variables adjusts the size, shape, and strength of the gravitational field, and allows you to control the variables involved in travel between worldlines.

John operates the device while sitting inside of a stationary car. The car and its contents (as well as a portion of the ground under the car that’s inside the gravitational field), are all transported together. Why a car, you ask? Well, John claims the device weighs about 500lbs (mostly the weight of the singularities, I assume), so you would not be able to hold onto it while in transit. Also, John claims that there is a gravitational pull toward the device equivalent to about 2Gs (twice the force of gravity on earth), so being seated and strapped into something would make transit a lot more comfortable.

As far as what the experience of time travel is like, I offer this final quote of a first-hand account from John Titor himself, taken from this forum:

The unit has a ramp up time after the destination coordinates are fed into the computers. An audible alarm and a small light start a short countdown at which point you should be secured in a seat. The gravity field generated by the unit overtakes you very quickly. You feel a tug toward the unit similar to rising quickly in an elevator and it continues to rise based on the power setting the unit is working under. At 100% power, the constant pull of gravity can be as high as 2 Gs or more depending on how close you are to the unit. There are no serious side effects but I try to avoid eating before a flight.

No bright flash of light is seen. Outside, the vehicle appears to accelerate as the light is bent around it. We have to wear sunglasses or close our eyes as this happens due to a short burst of ultraviolet radiation. Personally I think it looks like your driving under a rainbow. After that, it appears to fade to black and remains totally black until the unit is turned off. We are advised to keep the windows closed as a great deal of heat builds up outside the car. The gravity field also traps a small air pocket around the car that acts as your only O2 supply unless you bring compressed air with you. This pocket will only last for a short period and a carbon sensor tells us when it’s too dangerous. The C204 unit is accurate from 50 to 60 years a jump and travels at about 10 years an hour at 100% power.

You do hear a slight hum as the unit operates and when the power changes or the unit turns off. There is a great deal of electrical crackling noise from static electricity.

There you have it. A fairly detailed and, in my humble opinion, sophisticated model of how a time travel device could function. If this man is the perpetrator of a hoax, he went to an enormous amount of trouble to think through the physics of the device, design and photograph the device, and produce technical schematics for how it is assembled and operated.

Next: Time Travel 4 - The Credibility Question

Also in the Time Travel Series:
Time Travel 1 - The Story
Time Travel 2 - Worldlines

In order to understand how John Titor’s time travel device is supposed to function, one must first understand the model of reality that this device operates under.

According to John Titor, reality is actually composed of an infinite number of “worldlines”, - each one being different, depending on the choices made by people in the worldline. The idea is that all possibilities actually exist in different worldlines. For every choice that you, or anyone else, in all of history, could ever make, all of those choices have been realized somewhere. This eliminates the question of the grandfather paradox (i.e. What would happen if you went back in time and killed your grandfather before your parents, or you, were born? You would actually be killing your ancestor in a different worldline, and your own personal worldline would go on unchanged).

When John Titor came to our worldline, then, it was actually just a “parallel reality” that was occurring many years in the past, relative to his own worldline. His time travel machine had been constructed in such a way as to be able to travel to other worldlines with a minimum amount of “divergence” (that is, the smallest possible discrepancies between his history and the target worldline’s history), but the downside is that he could never return to his “actual” worldline again - only one that was 99.99999etc.% similar to his own, making the practical divergence negligible.

John himself stated that our worldline had only about a 1-2% divergence from his own history, and that it was similar enough for him to be convinced that the same major events (the civil war, nuclear bombing, etc.) would still happen as he had experienced them. The only discrepancies he mentioned were, of course, his presence in 2000-2001 (which never happened in his worldline), and a few other things he hinted at, such as the Y2K issue being a much bigger problem in his worldline. He even hinted that OUR experience of Y2K being negligible might have been due to influence from a traveler from another worldline.

As for real-life evidence of other worldlines or multiple-universe theory, I would encourage you to take a look at this video, which illustrates the famous Double-Slit Experiment. What is illustrated here is that matter (or the universe as we know it) is somehow “aware” of multiple possibilities, and in fact sometimes BEHAVES as if all possibilities were occurring right now. However, when there is an observer present, matter must “chose” a particular path. In the same way, all possibilities could exist in infinite (or near-infinite) worldlines, but we as observers (making choices) force reality to conform to a particular path of history. If I’m way off base here, feel free to correct me. A lot of this stuff is relatively new to me too! There is a wikipedia article on the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (most of which I don’t fully understand) which some of you may find useful.

The implications of the possible existence of other worldlines are many. Here are some of the thoughts I’ve had, and which John Titor himself discussed in the various forums he participated in.

Would the existence of multiple worldlines mean the existence of multiple Gods, if you believe in Him? I personally believe that there would still be a single God, who interacts with the outcomes of all possibilities.

But multiple worldlines would also mean that there are multiple versions of myself, all who have made different moral choices. There could be some worldlines where I’m a serial rapist, and others where I’m the equivalent of Billy Graham. In fact, John Titor’s view of the universe would say that it’s inevitable that both of these possibilities exist, as well as every possibility in-between. Does that mean that I’m in any way morally responsible for these other versions of me? I don’t believe so. John Titor himself said that he believes that all he can do is make choices that he feels are morally responsible, and that he will be held accountable by God for what he himself has done in his own worldline, or in any worldline he visits. That works for me.

For the religious minded, there would also be large implications for doctrines such as predestination, and the existence of worldlines in which Christ was not born, or born at a different time. As a Christian, I would have to believe that Jesus would have to appear and accomplish his work of salvation in every possible worldline, unless there are worldlines where humanity is not fallen. Another intriguing thought…

In spite of what Titor claims about there being infinite worldlines with infinite possibilities, if I were to accept the concept of multiple worldlines, I would have to believe that there are not actually an infinite number of them, but rather a very large, incalculable, but still finite, number of worldlines in existence. My reason for thinking so is this: If multiple worldlines exist, would they not have to still possess the properties of physics displayed by the universe at large? And if this is the case, there are some very real limitations to the number of choices we can make as human beings. There can’t be a worldline where 2 plus 2 equals 5, for example. Neither can there be a worldline where I have the power to change styrofoam into gold by coughing on it.

Also, the possibilities of my genetic makeup would have to fall within the limitations of my parents’ available genetic material - otherwise, there would be no actual “me” to speak of. Those genetic limitations would limit the number of choices available to me in my lifetime. The number of choices available to me that would modify my personal history would be astronomical in any worldline, but they would be finite, and subject to my genetic and physical limitations.

Titor also claimed that in his time, there was a point of view being considered that memory itself is not actually an accessing of stored information in the brain, but rather the accessing of real events which are occurring in other worldlines at that time, either being done by your “counterpart” in that worldline, or even being done by someone else. This could explain how memories of events can be inaccurate in comparison to other means of information recording (video or audio recording, for example). This idea was postulated (in fiction) by C.S. Lewis in his posthumous work The Dark Tower. Personally, I’m not quite ready to entertain that idea yet.

As a final point, there is the notion of death, and the end of worldlines. Does the universe come to an end when all worldlines reach their point of termination? Or does each one terminate separately? Do each of my other-worldly counterparts have a separate soul that dies in turn? Or are each of us part of a single soul, which does not fully experience death until all of our counterparts are dead as well? If all worldlines started at a single, finite starting point, is there a single, finite ending point for all worldlines as well? And if so, when is it?

Big questions. But once again, this is all based on a hypothetical view of how reality is constructed. John stated that in his worldline, the answers to all of these questions haven’t been worked out yet. All he could say was that it was a view of reality that seemed to best fit the facts for how time travel happened. Will happen. You know what I mean.

What’s interesting to me is the fact that John discussed these issues, and had thought through them, with a surprising amount of detail, in an interesting and intelligent way. He had well-developed opinions that went beyond what one would expect of somebody who was trying to perpetrate a hoax. It’s just another example of how he built his credibility as a possible time traveler.

Next: Time Travel 3 - The Device

Also in the Time Travel Series:
Time Travel 1 - The Story.
Time Travel 4 - The Credibility Question

Last week, Larissa and I watched a short, but extremely thought-provoking documentary entitled Obsessed and Scientific. It was conceived and directed by Jay Cheel, who is a friend of my friend Doug Nagy, and who completed this film as his final project for a film course at Niagara College (where Larissa teaches ESL).

In the course of checking out some of the information presented in the film, I came across the story of a man who goes by the name of John Titor (a pseudonym), and who is mentioned in Obsessed and Scientific rather prominently. Ever since my discovery of the John Titor information, I have been spending almost every waking hour digging into this stuff on the internet, and contemplating the possible ramifications of what I have read.

Now, before I explain anything further, let me preface this WHOLE post by saying that I am not convinced of the validity of this story. But I also cannot say that I am wholly convinced that it is a hoax either. I am approaching this with an open, but healthily skeptical, mind. Having made this disclaimer, allow me to present you with what I have been reading:

Back in late 2000 and early 2001, an individual began posting on a few different internet forums, claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2036. He was, of course, greeted with the same amount of disbelief and skepticism that you yourself are experiencing as you read these words. However, the more he conversed with people, explaining the means he used to travel through time, the reason he was doing it, and offering some information about his past (our future), the more credible he seemed.

There were many reasons for his perceived credibility. His story was consistent and logical, and was open to verification at several points. In the 5 years that have passed since John Titor’s internet postings, nobody has been able to reliably and absolutely discount these points. He had a specific and well-developed cultural worldview which was consistent with the account of his personal history, but different than most individuals in our culture. He spoke with intelligence and humour, and treated all of the questions asked of him with respectful (and often detailed) answers. He posted photos, diagrams, descriptions, and operating information for the device which he used to travel through time, which nobody has been able to prove false or trace back to a known fabrication. And he seemed to predict certain events and political trends which can be perceived to have taken shape in the ways he described them.

In short, he offered a very believable scenario of one who has actually traveled through time. I would go so far as to say that if anyone ever HAS traveled through time, short of appearing in my living room, there would have been little more that they could have done to demonstrate their legitimacy than what John Titor said and did.

In this series of posts (of which I’m “predicting” there will be three), [Editor: I was wrong - There are four!] I’m going attempt to present to you, my loyal readers, a summary of the major pieces of information surrounding this individual and his claims. In this particular post, I’m going to outline the major events of the future that John Titor claims to be his past, and explain why he was sent through time in the first place. In my next post, I’ll explain the worldview under which John Titor operates, and examine some of the ramifications of this worldview that arise as a result of believing that time travel is possible. My third post on this topic will address the physics of how John’s time travel device operates, and give an account of the experience of time travel in John’s own words. My final post will deal with the question of the credibility (or lack thereof) of John Titor’s story, and give a list of links to other sources of relevant information on this topic.

John Titor claims to have been born in 1998, in the state of Florida. Sometime in late 2004 and early 2005, unrest began to develop in the United States, due to increasing restrictions placed on people’s freedoms in the name of civil security. Homes were being searched by the authorities, and people were often arrested and detained without warrant or due process. This led to an American civil war, which escalated gradually, but which nobody could ignore by 2008.

The war seemed to be between the average US citizens and the state or federal controlled military and policing agencies. Those who decided to flee government harassment moved to rural areas and participated in guerilla warfare attacks against their oppressors, while the urban areas became strongholds of strict government-enforced control.

The destabilization of the USA lead to other ambitious countries taking advantage of the situation, and attempting to expand their global power-bases. China invaded Australia, and the European Union sent an army marching east of Germany. Finally, in 2015, with the civil war still raging in the USA, Russia launched a nuclear attack on China, Europe, and the United States. The American targets were the major city areas, thus eliminating the oppressive government forces, and ending the civil war, albeit at the cost of millions of lives.

John Titor claims to have spent his teens in a militia unit in Florida, and says that both he and his parents survived the war. In the aftermath of the nuclear attack, the American infrastructure was in shambles, and rural communities were forced to provide their own living essentials (growing their own food, manufacturing their own products, etc.) This situation is still the norm in John Titor’s 2036. Many survivors of the nuclear attacks died of starvation, lack of drinkable water, and radiation effects. Few people are able to give birth to healthy children.

The United States of 2036 is organized a bit differently than it is now. The Constitution was amended to protect people’s liberties more, and while all of the territorial states are still intact, they have joined together with neighboring states to form 5 major American territories, each with a separate elected president. These 5 presidents make decisions together, and are elected on a rotating basis. By 2036, much of the American infrastructure has been rebuilt, although drinkable water is still a major concern. Bikes and horses are more common modes of transportation, and there is a public transit system of some sort which links major population centres.

John claims that stable time-travel devices were developed in 2034, and that their existence is not a secret to the people of his time. Not many have been produced, and in 2036, they are all owned by the military, although John said that he believes that there could be commercial time travel happening by 2045. The major components in the time travel device are a pair of small, artificially-created rotating singularities (or black holes) which generate a gravitational distortion field, which is (according to Einstein) a warping of space-time itself. But more on how the machine works in a later post…

John was part of a military team that is sent on various missions through time in order to assist the people of 2036. John himself was assigned to travel to 1975 and procure an IBM 5100 computer, in order to help debug some software issues in his own time. This computer, which was indeed developed in 1975, had the unique features of being both relatively portable, while also being able to translate between various programming languages which are no longer in use, except in old hardware systems that, for various reasons, have not been upgraded. John was selected for this mission because his grandfather was one of the developers at IBM who worked on this computer, and his familial connection with this developer would allow John to both establish his credibility as a time traveler, as well as to secure the help of his grandfather in modifying the computer to translate to UNIX (which has it’s own “Y2K”-type issue that will occur in 2038).

John stated that because of a promise that he made to his grandfather in 1975, he came forward in time to late 2000. John never stated the exact nature of that promise, but speculation online ranges from warning his parents of the impending civil and nuclear wars, to possibly collecting data that helped solve the Y2K crisis, which he could have given back to his grandfather in 1975. While spending time in 2000 and 2001, John stayed with his parents, where he met the past version of himself as a 3 year-old. While this fact alone may seem exceptionally implausible, especially given the fact that the adult John Titor had no memory of receiving a visit from his future self when HE was a child, it does indeed make sense when you understand the nature of how time travel works, according to how John explains it (which I will cover in my next post).

After making a series of internet posts and participating in several online discussion forums between November 2000 and March 2001, John left this time period to go back to 1975, and then forward to 2036. Since his departure, many people have attempted to find holes in his story or to search for clues as to who might be behind a hoax such as this. It’s important to note that John himself did not try to extort money, or seek to gain anything materially from his internet communications - He was only looking for interesting discussion and insights into the culture and beliefs of our time.

If you’d like to look deeper into the story of John Titor, as well as find links to the archives of the posts he made 5 years ago, a good starting place is http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/. You can also find one of the archieves of the forum that John Titor posted to here.

Next: Time Travel 2 - Worldlines

Also in the Time Travel Series:
Time Travel 3 - The Device
Time Travel 4 - The Credibility Question

As a linguist, I believe that there are no real “rules” for language. There are only sets of evolving tendencies and commonly accepted speech-habits. Linguistics, as a field of study, does not strive to be prescriptive (that is, telling people how they should speak), but rather descriptive (that is, telling people how they do speak).

Yesterday, Larissa and I were talking about the “proper” way to pronounce often. When I was younger, I never pronounced the [t] in the middle of the word. But in my adult years, whether through a shift in our culture’s constantly evolving speech patterns, or maybe because there is a growing perception that pronouncing the [t] is a more “formal” or “refined” way of speaking, I have found myself more often than not pronouncing this word with the [t].

Larissa herself was a little confused as to whether or not the [t] should be pronounced, and couldn’t quite remember if she had been pronouncing the [t] her whole life, or just for the last few years. As a compromise, I decided to exercise my rights as a linguist and modify the pronunciation of often to a third form that we can all agree upon: offenton.

So now it is up to you, my loyal readers, to spread the use of this new word, and forever silence the questions of how to say often. I think if we use this new pronunciation offenton enough, it’ll really catch on.

In the last few months, my readership has been steadily declining. What is the cause for this, you might ask? I believe it can be summed up in two words: Fewer posts. And what is the reason for this lack of posting? There are many factors:

1. I got married. This kinda threw a whole extra factor into my usual single-man’s schedule of regular video game playing, microwave food-eating, planning my own cult, and taking long baths while reading various classics of western literature. I also used to devote a good hour each night to blog-writing. Now I have other things occupying my schedule, like showering my wife with affection. (You know, this is one of those times when the spoken medium would have lent itself to a good joke, if I had paused a few seconds after the word “wife” in the sentence above. Alas, in writing, the joke cannot be conveyed)…

2. I got a new job. Working at a Viet-Thai restaurant is by no means hard labour, but it does mean a lot of hours on my feet with very little opportunity to sit down. Consequently, after walking home from work, I feel lazy. Too lazy to sit at the computer and churn out another interesting post. But not so lazy as to neglect showing affection to my wife (see number 1 above).

3. I’m losing storage space. My website is hosted by a free service that only provides a minimum of storage space for posts and pictures. Since I have an aesthetic policy of including a nice picture with every post, I only have enough space for maybe 4 or 5 more posts, before I’m forced to go with another hosting service. I’m currently in the middle of checking out a new host, and there’s a good chance that this site will be moved to a new address in the near future, but until that happens, I’m going to have to be careful about how much more I post here. I suppose I could stop putting up pictures with my posts, but then you wouldn’t be able to see as much of my beautiful wife (see number 1 above).

As far as what’s going on in my life lately, here are some highlights:

- Got the djembe: Been playing Abba songs on it. It sounds awesome.

- Made my own pad thai this week: Using a professional wok for the first time is like learning to drive standard - too many controls with a lot of potential for disaster.

- Need to take out the kitchen garbage: We’re currently hosting a fruit-fly colony.

- Trying to lose some weight: When you have to go an extra belt-notch, you know you have to start taking it seriously.

- Need more local friends: We can’t drive to Hamilton every time we have the urge for socialization.

- Fireflies: We saw some outside our balcony the other night. Who doesn’t like fireflies?!

- Cheap Chocolate: Food Basics has Caramilk bars on sale for $0.50. Makes wanting to lose weight a whole lot more difficult.

That’s it for now, boys and girls. I’ll try to squeeze in some more posting this week, and hopefully, I’ll have this blog moved over to www.darrenconley.com in the very near future…

Sometime last year, seemingly out of nowhere, I was suddenly besieged with an overwhelming urge to own a hand drum. I believe it started when I was on a weekend retreat with a young adults’ group from Philpott church, and was offered the opportunity to accompany the band on a genuine African djembe for the worship music. I can’t say that my playing was spectacular, and I can’t say that I was ever asked to play again. What I CAN say is that I had a lot of fun smacking the drumskin, and that afterwards, my hands felt like they had been high-fiving an angry gorilla for an hour (I guess I have to build up some “drum smacking tolerance”).

Since then I have had visions of myself, sometimes garbed in hippie-like clothing, sitting on the side of the road at Port Dalhousie, thumping away on a djembe like an African master, singing Bob Dylan songs, and earning the respect and small change of passers-by while collecting donations in a top-hat, or possibly a beret. Playin’ the music of the streets. Capturing the heartbeat of the nation and channeling it through my hands and fingers into the rhythms of the new generation.

So I started checking out prices on djembes, and dropping into music stores to try them out. I decided that I wanted something that is key-tuned (as opposed to using ropes, as traditional djembes do), simply because drums are far easier to tune with keys instead of ropes. I also wanted something in the 12 inch diameter range of things, since they offer the greatest range of sound for a relatively low cost.

After having visited Thorold Music, which is about a half-hour walk from my apartment, I found a djembe that fits all of my criteria, and sounds great to boot. Or to hit, I guess. I don’t know why people say “to boot”. Unless you’re talking about booting something, and this is not a kick drum.

Tomorrow, after work, Larissa and I will jump into our Honda Civic and make the short trek to Thorold Music, where I will pay the required sum of money (along with the necessary taxation amount) and thus come to acquire the drum which I have dreamed about for many a long hour. So prepare yourself - Darren and his djembe will soon be “takin’ it to the streets”. And the rhythm of the new generation will be made manifest, at last.

As a child of the 80s, there were certain life principles that I learned from television and movies at an early age: Transformers, GI Joe, and He Man taught me that there are clear lines between good and evil, and that the good guys always ALWAYS win. The Neverending Story, Willow, and The Karate Kid taught me that those who seem weak and forgettable can rise up and find the strength to be the heroes which save the day. And E.T., Explorers, and The Goonies taught me that adults don’t really “get” how things really work, and that it’s up to us kids to make things right.

I firmly believe that the success of the Harry Potter books is largely based on J.K. Rowling’s ability to tap into these principles from the 80s and repackage them for today’s generation. I’m surprised that film makers have been so slow in these last few decades to tap into the same formula. Perhaps Monster House, the best film of the summer so far, is a sign that “the 80’s formula” is finally catching on again.

Directed by rookie Gil Kenan (who, according to imdb.com, has no other entertainment credentials whatsoever) and produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, this movie takes everything we loved about the movies of the 80s, and hands it to us in a shiny new computer animated package that is truly a joy to watch.

The premise of the story is simple: There’s a haunted house across the street that is eating anyone who steps on its property, and it’s up to three kids to figure out the secrets of the house, and how to stop it. After all, Halloween is only one day away, and with dozens of kids trick-or-treating on a carnivorous front porch, the death toll would be staggering.

DJ is the movie’s main hero, and the kid that most boys in the theatre will relate to. He’s firmly entrenched in his late-elementary school geekiness, but you can tell that by the time his voice finishes changing, he’ll have settled into that understated coolness that we children of the 80s encapsulate, as we now ease into our early 30s. Chowder is DJ’s best friend, and reminds me of that kid that you always ended up hanging out with, but could never remember why. He can be whiny, obnoxious, and overly competitive, but when it comes down to it, who else is going to share your enthusiasm for the newest issue of Lethargic Comics, or this year’s Saturday morning cartoon lineup?

Jenny represents every girl that we prepubescent boys used to have a crush on. She’s pretty (but not glamorous), slightly more mature than we were, intelligent, and has just enough attitude to intrigue us, scare us, captivate us, and frustrate us, all at the same time. The kinda girl we desperately wanted, but never thought we could have. The kind of girl I ended up marrying (with the exception that my wife actually IS glamorous!).

The cast of supporting characters is just as wonderfully crafted, and just as entertaining to watch. Jon Heder voices a pimply, pizza-delivering geek-guru who, unlike DJ, will never outgrow his love for all things found at a comic convention. Maggie Gyllenhaal voices the babysitter who’s more concerned about her boyfriend than the boys she’s supposed to be watching. And Steve Buscemi voices Mr. Nebbercracker - an old man with a terrible secret.

What astounded me about these animated characters, and this is most readily seen in the character of Chowder, is how REAL they all seemed. The speech patterns, the annoying taunts, the awkward mannerisms, the way they try to wrap their minds around solving this problem - These characters are more believable than most of the kids found in live action films, and that says something about the skill of the animators and the director.

I also love the way the plot of this movie unfolds. You may have thought that you’ve already seen everything there is to see about this movie in the trailers and commercials - trust me, you haven’t seen anything yet. Right from the very beginning, this movie threw me for a loop, and just when you think that you’re headed for the climax and resolution of the story, everything steps up a notch. The twists and turns this movie takes speak to how well this story was crafted, and how well it was marketed to the public.

Some of you may think that this is a movie about children, with a childish storyline, meant to be watched exclusively by children. You are wrong. This movie is for every one of us who grew up in the 80s, being taught those sacred lessons about how the world REALLY works. There are moments when you will be genuinely scared, and moments where you will be genuinely laughing. And by the end of the movie, you will be walking out of the theatre, smiling, with a little more faith that the magic of your childhood is still alive in Hollywood today, and thanking Spielberg and Zemeckis for letting some of that magic shine through in Monster House.