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

vice.com

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

#81

Post by myth_drannon »

theGnuMe wrote: post #61
wootland wrote: post #15

As 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?

I like this concept. Is there any sci-fi based on this premise?

Aliens in the movie Arrival perceive time in circular fashion, basically live in future and past.

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

#82

Post by sdwr »

snozolli wrote: post #73
gfd wrote: post #43

I 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".

That was proven not to be the case: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-n...

Sounds like that link supports the idea?

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

#84

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

quijoteuniv wrote: post #76
wootland wrote: post #15

As 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.

I think of personal growth as a conspiracy between present me, past me, and future me. Where our motives are aligned, good things happen.

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

#85

Post by whatshisface »

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.

It is because in both cases, you can work out that you'll never make an observation that really proves it one way or the other, but you might come up with some laws of physics that are more conveniently expressed in one way than another. They're both ultimately questions about your coordinate system, and in fact it is easier to invert time than it is to work out how everything's supposed to function in a rotating+sun-orbiting+precessing+... coordinate system.

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

#86

Post by raydiatian »

A growing number of people are recognizing that this article was published in VICE, which isn’t exactly a reputable STEM magazine, as punctuated by the fact that the article refers to theoretical physicists as “people” or “scientists”.

You gotta think about the (stoner) audience this article was written for, I wouldn’t take too much stock in its conclusions.

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

#87

Post by idleproc »

theGnuMe wrote: post #61
wootland wrote: post #15

As 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?

I like this concept. Is there any sci-fi based on this premise?

Not sci-fi, but the block universe is central to Alan Moore's Jerusalem.

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

#88

Post by andsoitis »

myth_drannon wrote: post #81
theGnuMe wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this concept. Is there any sci-fi based on this premise?

Aliens in the movie Arrival perceive time in circular fashion, basically live in future and past.

And the movie is based on Ted Chiang’s novella, "Story of Your Life"

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

#89

Post by eternauta3k »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #54

For this community it might be useful to stress that the vast majority of practicing theoretical physicists is not in the least worried about any interpretation of quantum mechanics. I would argue that the idea instead is to try to make predictions for future experiments. In the case of quantum gravity, especially string theory, these might be thought experiments (what happens if you fall into a black hole), technica…

Still, can't alternative formulations inspire new physics? Like Lagrangian/Hamiltonian formulations of classical mechanics making the step towards QM easier?

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

#90

Post by soperj »

Nevermark wrote: post #72
wootland wrote: post #15

As 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…

> And no practical amount of shaking the jar will ever return the marbles to a high order state again.

This can't be true. Take the case where there's only 2 marbles, it's likely that at some point that shaking them will return them to the original state. For higher numbers of marbles the probability becomes lower and lower, but is never 0.

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