A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past • Hacker News Board

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#241

Post by mjhay » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:53 PM UTC

excalibur wrote: post #110

> “You have to be very careful in a retrocausal model because the fact of the matter is, we can't send signals back in time,” Adlam explained. “It's important that we can't, because if we could, then we could produce all sorts of vehicles or paradoxes. You have to make sure your model doesn't allow that.” This rings false to my scifi-trained brain. Paradoxes emerge when information about the future allows you to chan…

I'm guessing it's in terms of quantum information. Quantum entanglement and tunneling can happen faster than the speed of light, which causes similar time paradoxes with special relativity. This is avoided by the impossibility of sending observable classical information. Two entangled objects can affect each other, but you can't get actual information about it, because it is destroyed upon observation.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#242

Post by bnralt » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

nanidin wrote: post #222

bigbacaloa wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"gravity is a universal constant" contradicts Newtonian mechanics, special and general relativity.

In these "it's like taking a video of throwing a ball in the air and allowing it to land on the ground, then playing it in reverse" examples, I can't help but think of Newton's first law. If an object at rest stays at rest, how does the ball leap from the ground? Where does the impulse come from? Reverse time seems too far fetched for me, or at least the simplified naïve version of it does.

It also seems a bit misleading, since in that scenario a ball is intentionally thrown so that it comes down the same way.

Let's consider something else - imagine an accretion disk of space dust slowly pulling itself together to form a planet. Play that in reverse, and you have the a planet slowly coming apart piece by piece. Imagine reversing the impact that created the moon. The moon comes apart piece by piece, creating an accretion disk around the earth, which then all moves and hits one area of the earth, and there several parts of it (and part of the earth itself) move together to form a separate planet, which then launches itself from the earths surface into space, flies around the sun a few times, and then slowly breaks apart piece by piece into another accretion disk.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#243

Post by contravariant » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

electrondood wrote: post #236

I 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 lo…

Superdeterminism is a cop-out where the universe is simultaneously the only existing one and the most common possible one, for no obvious reason.

But yeah we'd like to think there's just one past and multiple different futures, but the fact that the laws of physics are time-reversible kind of makes it unlikely for both to be true.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#244

Post by kgwgk » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #144

nanidin wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we change the analogy of throwing a ball to firing a gun into the air - does the analogy still work? Since when we fire the gun up, the bullet will travel faster up than it will travel down due to terminal velocity in forward time. How is that phenomenon explained in reverse time?

Instead of predominately striking the bullet in a way that causes it to slow down, the molecules in the air will predominately strike it in a way that causes it to move faster, in what looks like an unbelievable (but still physically possible) run of good luck.

In the way down -sky to gun - the molecules in the air will give it energy to accelerate more than gravity alone would. Before that - in the way up - air molecules will cause it to move upwards at constant speed until conveniently they stop doing so.

> unbelievable (but still physically possible)

Physically possible - but in the same sense that the second law is not a physical law.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#245

Post by stametseater » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

agilob wrote: post #226

ChancyChance wrote: post #195

It's an article about QM. On Vice. About a QM thought experiment. On Vice. Why would there be any expectation of scientific rigor whatsoever? "retrocausality, may seem like science fiction grist at first glance" Stop there, vice.

Check other articles by the same author.

Mostly a bunch of clickbait crap.

> "One 'Super-Earth' Could Destroy Our Own Planet, Study Finds"

> A super-Earth existing in our solar system is so far hypothetical, but its effects would be incomprehensibly destructive.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#246

Post by acyou » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

electrondood wrote: post #236

I 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 lo…

Could you please expand on the experiences that you have had, that can't be explained without future events already existing?

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#247

Post by plebianRube » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

I try to tell my 'past' self events that have occurred.

I also try to listen to any future 'self' notifications.

It's mostly a fun thought experiment.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#248

Post by aeternum » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #105

jonny_eh wrote: post #77

> It may seem eerie to our brains, which process events sequentially, but the history of science is also littered with examples of human biases leading to bad conclusions, such as the Earth-centric model of the solar system. Slow down. Assuming that time moves in one direction is not comparable to geocentrism.

Yep. Someone else already pointed out the well known counterargument to symmetry below regarding thermodynamics. You typically don't see scrambled eggs become whole again. I think that's pretty hard evidence to overcome. Granted, I'm not a physicist and I'm sure any physicist working on this totally understands that. Just wanted to point it out.

The argument is that thermodynamics is simply a statistical phenomenon. Scrambled eggs are due to proteins denaturing (folding in a random way).

Scrambled eggs do actually unscramble spontaneously if you zoom in far enough. The issue is that the rate of scrambling is much higher than the rate of unscrambling so on the whole, you get scrambled eggs.

The amazing thing is that all chemical processes are actually reversible given enough energy and finesse.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#249

Post by acyou » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

The idea that there are "causes" and that there are "effects", and that these are separate and distinct, is in some way on a parallel with the idea that the past influences the future, and vice versa. If we think that the past influences the future, then it's just as reasonable to think that the future influences the past. Personally, I view "causes" and "effects" as abstractions that we use to help interpret our complicated world, nothing more.

That's not to say that it's not legitimate to talk about causes and effects and to reason using them, but when seriously considered, anything that absolutely looks like definitely a cause or an effect, needs to be considered again with the system boundaries re-drawn, that is to say, with the system boundaries drawn around the whole universe.

Take for example the cigarette lighting the forest on fire. Saying that the cigarette caused the fire is as much of a value judgement and political statement as saying that the decades-long drought caused the fire, or that humans causing global warming caused the fire, or that the cigarette companies caused the fire, or that God caused the fire. The emotional response that each of these statements elicits in various people should tell you that any statement linking cause and effect is emotional and political at its core. This reflects the nature of the humans that create these statements.

We have a built-in tendency to try to assign causes to events and effects. We should zoom out enough to understand that this is part of our humanity, not part of the way that the universe works.

Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past

#250

Post by taylorius » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

stametseater wrote: post #245

agilob wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check other articles by the same author.

Mostly a bunch of clickbait crap. > "One 'Super-Earth' Could Destroy Our Own Planet, Study Finds" > A super-Earth existing in our solar system is so far hypothetical, but its effects would be incomprehensibly destructive.

Lars von Trier has entered the chat.