Maybe in a microscopic way like at quantum level
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A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
41–50 of 455 posts
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#42I am fascinated by physics but my original background is math. This all seems fascinating but also sort of baroque and far from experiments like much of QM and GR lately.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#43I used to believe that the world is lazily loaded. That means the first moment I see something (e.g., a world map) is the point where all the past history to consistently explain the observation gets "locked in".
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#44Another point for my favorite minority quantum mechanics interpretation, two-state vector formalism (TSVF).
Where can I read the report?
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#45Interesting 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?
That's a very lazy school of thought though. It's just atheistic Calvinism, a tautology masquerading as a "philosophy". Calvin believed in pre-destination (your fate and every decision you make is decided before you exist) on the grounds that, because God exists and is omnipotent, what you are doing must therefore be what God wants to happen, both good and bad. After all, God is omnipotent, so there you go. Today's C…
> In fact, it's an arguably more ignorant version of Calvinism, because it requires that one completely dismisses any knowledge they have of probability theory
No to pick too many nits, but I think it is well established that knowledge of formal sciences (i.e. mathematics) does not impart knowledge about natural sciences (i.e. physics). While maths a useful tool, there are no established rules of inference for reality, and without rules of inference you can't really make claims on infinite sets.
Natural sciences allow us to find mathematical constructs that make good predictions within specific constraints or that have not yet been falsified, just because something is true in probability theory does not make it true in reality.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn’t that be a matter of perception and written history rather than the factual past?
Maybe perception IS reality.
Thats pretty dangerous thinking though. Adolf Hitler famously said "a lie told often enough eventually becomes the truth" and then used that way of thinking to commit horrible atrocities.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The factual past is what actually happened, history is what we wrote down. Perception and reality are not in fact the same thing.
Can you show that there is a factual past without parsing it through your perception? It was factual that the earth was 6000 years old, until it wasn't.
> It was factual that the earth was 6000 years old, until it wasn't.
This is the opposite of the example you seem to think it is. The Earth has always had the same actual date of origin. If it is not factual now that the Earth is 6,000 years old, then it wasn't before either. The whole argument here is that people's perceptions and reality can in fact be different.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#48> A growing number of scientists...
Beware, getting from one to two is already a growing number!
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The factual past is what actually happened, history is what we wrote down. Perception and reality are not in fact the same thing.
Can you show that there is a factual past without parsing it through your perception? It was factual that the earth was 6000 years old, until it wasn't.
I would argue that factual past is unprovable without some sort of visual evidence, and even that can be manipulated...especially with AI on the rise. The problem with your point is that EVERYTHING is parsed through your perception, and you can just as easily make the point with the same logic that you can't prove that what you are currently experiencing is present reality.
What actually happened is unprovable without some layer of trust once the event leaves the affected. For example, I ate a grapefruit for breakfast. That is a fact. However, I have tossed the peel away and I am communicating that I ate it with a stranger over the internet. For all you know, I could have eaten cookie crisp. If you and enough people get together and collectively believe that I ate cookie crisp, the public belief will be that I ate cookie crisp. However, that does not change the fact that I ate a grapefruit.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#50The end is not unlike the beginning, in that it has been written to exactitude. “The pen has been lifted and the ink is dried”.
Side note: does anyone remember when Vice was “fringe” in its content? I mean, ten or so years ago…