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A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
231–240 of 455 posts
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#232> In addition to potentially rescuing concepts like locality and realism, retrocausal models also open avenues of exploring a “time-symmetric” view of our universe, in which the laws of physics are the same regardless of whether time runs forward or backward. Usually the fundamental laws are regarded as time symmetric already. What does this mean: > Instead, retrocausal models suggest that there is a mechanism that a…
>Surely future states inevitably correlate with past states?
He means to correlate through effects going the future -> past direction...
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
The statement is mathematically correct [0]. [0] https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/142730/px-x-0-when...
We're talking about physics, not mathematics. We don't have the luxury of hand-waving away fundamental questions about the nature of the continuum. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis
>We're talking about physics, not mathematics.
Mathematics still apply.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#234on the quantum level sure, but on the macro level it's just idealism
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, I think the comparison is pretty reasonable. Your entire experience of the world is defined and limited by the fact that your brain "only processes information in one direction of time" (for lack of better wording). Your personal experience does not necessarily map correctly to the real world. The same is true for both examples.
It's not just a matter of our subjective experience of time, it's a matter of the laws of thermodynamics and entropy. Time moves in one direction is another way of saying entropy always increases. If time could move in the opposite direction, then entropy decreases which breaks our understanding of physics.
I don't think the idea that "the future can influence the past" is the same thing as saying that entropy decreases or that time can move in the opposite direction. I think these are different concerns
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#236I have also come to this conclusion. I have had experiences that cannot possibly be explained unless at least some future events already exist.
This also explained the "probabilistic" nature of quantum behaviors; it's only probabilistic to us because we are unaware of the influence of future events. I now believe it's extremely likely that the universe is superdetermined, and I gave up the idea of actual free will long ago.
Highly recommend "Time Loops" by Eric Wargo.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#237As a non-physicist I'm not sure I'm interpreting this correctly. Does this essentially mean that all states in time already exist and our consciousness is just traversing this 4D space in one direction on the time axis? If so, does that mean that the big bang could actually be the end of the universe and we're just experiencing time in "reverse" toward an initial starting state that we perceive as the future?
You can wish yourself well in the past. I believe this works.
You're actually the lamination of what you typically consider to be yourself, across all time periods in which you exist: a 4-dimensional spacetime worm.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're talking about physics, not mathematics. We don't have the luxury of hand-waving away fundamental questions about the nature of the continuum. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis
> We're talking about physics, not mathematics. Mathematics still apply.
Mathematics applies insofar as it can model the subject under discussion. It's a great tool for, dare I say, 99.999999...% of practical problems. But mathematics is an imperfect model of objective reality that cannot resolve metaphysical problems like Zeno's paradoxes [0]. Any discussion of retro-causality is inherently one of the philosophy of space and time, which is the domain of metaphysics, not mathematics, so we can't necessarily apply familiar mathematical lemmas to resolve the problems it creates.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#In_modern_m...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_space_and_time#D...
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#239As a non-physicist I'm not sure I'm interpreting this correctly. Does this essentially mean that all states in time already exist and our consciousness is just traversing this 4D space in one direction on the time axis? If so, does that mean that the big bang could actually be the end of the universe and we're just experiencing time in "reverse" toward an initial starting state that we perceive as the future?
While most laws of physics may be time symmetric, the laws of thermodynamics are not - wherever there is a gradient in entropy. In very informal terms, anywhere where there is very low entropy (higher order), any direction away from that will likely (to the point of certainty) be in a direction of higher entropy (lower order). For instance, if you have a jar of red & blue marble, with high order (such as perfect alte…
So I think I understand this argument and it makes sense to me (at the moment). To me the (to paraphrase), "increasing as we move away from the big bang" stuff seems to lead right to the idea that the expansion of the universe is what we perceive as the passing of time, but I never hear any one knowledgeable say that. Is there some obvious reason that it's not that succinct?
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#240Interesting because it messes with the school of thought that everything is determined already and we're just following a sequence of actions that arise from the starting conditions of the universe. If causality is broken then maybe we have free will?
Causality isn't broken; the universe is "simultaneously causal and teleological," because it's superdetermined.
There also isn't any free will, because there isn't actually any agent who could have it. Actions we perceive as volitional actually arise in the brain up to 7s before we "choose" them. The sense of a "me" is a post hoc add-on that claims credit for everything, in order to unite the disparate phenomena that comprise the sense of self.
There isn't actually any "me," and recognizing this is what the word "enlightenment" refers to.