The Philosophy and/or Physics of Retrocausality

I am a believer in retrocausality ... that events from 'now' or the future can effect the past. In my mind, retrocausality makes perfect sense. However, most people say it's impossible (or unprovable) so there is debate about it. So I thought I'd start this thread for discussion on retrocausality.

How I see it ... time moves in all directions. Forward, backward, up, down, in, out, sideways. What happens in one part of time and space sends ripples across all of time and space. Things happening in our future are effecting us now, but we don't know it because to us it's just part of the normal flow.

From a metaphysical view - Once upon a time an old nun told me that God works outside of time and isn't held by time restraints. Everything everywhere is happening all at once to God. So if you are praying for someone to 'leave their sinful ways', but after praying for that person you then you find out that the person had died years before, your prayers aren't wasted. God knew you'd be praying for that person at this time and so applied those prayer to the person back when they were alive.

So even though that's a religious twist to the retrocausality discussion, I think it kind of makes the point. The nun said God sees everything all at once and the prayers were applied backwards in our time. A physicist or metaphysicist who believes in retrocausality would call the prayers 'energy' and that 'the universe' was effected in retrocausality. (poor example but I'd think it was something like that).

Basic Retrocausality Info

Retrocausality (also called retro-causation, retro-chronal causation, backward causation, and similar terms) is any of several hypothetical phenomena or processes that reverse causality, allowing an effect to occur before its cause.

Retrocausality is primarily a thought experiment in philosophy of science based on elements of physics, addressing the question: Can the future affect the present, and can the present affect the past? Philosophical considerations of time travel often address the same issues as retrocausality, as do treatments of the subject in fiction, although the two terms are not universally synonymous.

Retrocausality is sometimes associated with the nonlocal correlations that generically arise from quantum entanglement,which Albert Einstein famously called "spooky action at a distance", including the notable special case of the delayed choice quantum eraser

Physics Professor John G. Cramer

ohn G. Cramer (born October 24, 1934) is a professor of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, the United States. When not teaching, he works with the STAR (Solenoidal Tracker At RHIC) detector at the new Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. He is currently engaged in experiments at the University of Washington to test retrocausality by using a version of the delayed choice quantum eraser without coincidence counting. This experiment, if successful, would imply that entanglement can be used to send a signal instantaneously between two distant locations (or a message backwards in time from the apparatus to itself). Such "spooky communication" experiments have never been successfully conducted, and only attempted a limited number of times, since most physicists believe that they would violate the no-communication theorem. However, a small number of scientists (Cramer among them) believe that there is no physical law prohibiting such communication.

Some people bring in the Grandfather Paradox to say that Retrocausality can not happen ...
The Grandfather Paradox

The grandfather paradox is a proposed paradox of time travel first described by the science fiction writer René Barjavel in his 1943 book Le Voyageur Imprudent (Future Times Three).The paradox is described as following: the time traveller went back in time to the time when his grandfather had not married yet. At that time, the time traveller kills his grandfather, and therefore, the time traveller is never born when he was meant to be. If he is never born, then he is unable to travel through time and kill his grandfather, which means he would be born, and so on.

I do not see this as being relevant. Retrocausality is 'how things are supposed to happen'. The Grandfather Paradox would be humans inserting a disruptive element to the natural retrocausality system. So I don't see this being a part of the equation.

PHYSICS of Retrocausality -

We don't understand even one tiny bit of the physics of the multiverse. However, there are some people in the physics field who have made statements in the area of retrocausality such as the Wheeler-Feynman Absorber Theory .

Closed timelike Curve -

is a world line in a Lorentzian manifold, of a material particle in spacetime that is "closed," returning to its starting point. This possibility was first raised[citation needed] by Kurt Gödel in 1949, who discovered a solution to the equations of general relativity (GR) allowing CTCs known as the Gödel metric; and since then other GR solutions containing CTCs have been found, such as the Tipler cylinder and traversable wormholes. If CTCs exist, their existence would seem to imply at least the theoretical possibility of time travel backwards in time, raising the spectre of the grandfather paradox, although the Novikov self-consistency principle seems to show that such paradoxes could be avoided. Some physicists speculate that the CTCs which appear in certain GR solutions might be ruled out by a future theory of quantum gravity which would replace GR, an idea which Stephen Hawking has labeled the chronology protection conjecture. Others note that if every closed timelike curve in a given space-time passes through an event horizon, a property which can be called chronological censorship, then that space-time with event horizons excised would still be causally well behaved and an observer might not be able to detect the causal violation.

For related reading -

Aristotle - The Four Causes

Four Causes refers to an influential principle in Aristotelian thought whereby causes of change or movement are categorized into four fundamental types of answer to the question "why?". Aristotle wrote that "we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why, that is to say, its cause."[1][2] While there are cases where identifying a cause is difficult, or in which causes might merge, Aristotle was convinced that his four causes provided an analytical scheme of general applicability

The four 'causes' - Material Cause; Formal Cause; Efficient or Moving Cause; Final Cause

To me retrocausality makes perfect sense. I can see it working in my minds eye.

So anyways ... Retrocausality ... where do you stand and what do you think?

Here is my issue with this: Gravity.

If time operates backwards, that would mean:

I am actually vomiting my food rather than consuming it, except that when I vomit once a year or so I finally get to consume food by mouth (as time is operating in reverse). Does this mean food comes in as #1 or #2 (because apparently in reverse time world food originates from the sewage system-toiletry), and somehow it comes out afterwards as a fully cooked perfect looking meal, which we then un-cook and put back in sealable packages and then put them into the fridge? Then take it back to the store (while driving backwards?) and they give me my money back as I return the goods??

Obviously none of that makes any sense at all.

Perhaps such a thing as traveling backwards in time is possible (although I have many serious doubts), but the amount of energy required to achieve that feat seems far beyond human capability currently.

muzzleflash
Here is my issue with this: Gravity.
If time operates backwards, that would mean:
I am actually vomiting my food rather than consuming it, ...

I"m not looking at it like that. I'm looking at it like time is a big pond and when an event happens (like a rock falling in the pond), it sends ripples out all around .. forward, backwards, sideways .... and even downwards because the rock falls that way which effects the 'down'.

Thats simple and not totally accurate, but that's the best I can come up with right now ...

FlyersFan

muzzleflash
Here is my issue with this: Gravity.
If time operates backwards, that would mean:
I am actually vomiting my food rather than consuming it, ...

I"m not looking at it like that. I'm looking at it like time is a big pond and when an event happens (like a rock falling in the pond), it sends ripples out all around .. forward, backwards, sideways .... and even downwards because the rock falls that way which effects the 'down'.

Thats simple and not totally accurate, but that's the best I can come up with right now ...

You mean the rock flies off the bottom of the lake, goes through the water absorbing ripples that came out of no where from the edges of the pond, and then flies in the air (perfectly dry all of the sudden) all the way to your hand where you catch it, and then put it down on the ground.

Then you get in your car by walking backwards, turn on the engine by turning the key backwards, and then drive backwards back home?

reply to post by muzzleflash


No. I"m looking at the lake as a symbol of time and the rock as an event. The event happens and it sends out energy in all directions. that's how I see time and events. Energy that has effects.

reply to post by FlyersFan


You might enjoy looking around this website:

www.fourmilab.ch...

FlyersFan
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

No. I"m looking at the lake as a symbol of time and the rock as an event. The event happens and it sends out energy in all directions. that's how I see time and events. Energy that has effects.

A lake isn't primarily a symbol of time, it's a lake. It symbolizes itself first and foremost.
It can be used to symbolize anything if one is creative.
Rocks aren't events exactly, they are objects that can participate in events.

How can you 'see' time? We see the progression of events and explain it's chronology under the term "Time", but time itself no more "real" than distance, height, or width. It's merely a method of measurement of a concept.

Hmmm, I suppose it is a possibility.

However, we humans are operating in the third dimension, and we cannot perceive anything in the higher dimensions. If we were able to go into the 4th, or higher dimensions, we could only perceive it within our own 3rd dimensional view.

As far as going forwards, or backwards in time. It cannot happen. At least within our own 3rd dimensional selves. And within our own set of dimensions.

If you go into the 4th dimension, it is basically the 3rd dimension + time. A line connects the past to the future. From there, different possible outcomes may arise within our 4th dimension, which can come from the actions and decisions we make, and others make, which brings us into the 5th dimension. The fifth dimension is length, width, depth, time, and possibility.

Now, when you take an event that has already happened. Such as JFK being assassinated, it cannot be taken back. We cannot go back in time to change that. Or the events that have already happened in our own lives.

The only way that you can try and do this, is by trying to fold the fifth dimension into the 6th dimension. So in essence, you would have to create a shortcut to another separate 5th dimension in order to trigger a new sense of time. Which would be considered the 6th dimension.

I hope I am explaining that right. It can become a bit confusing and tricky to explain.

But, it seems through physics you may be able to go backwards or forwards in time. However, you would need to branch off into a different and separate dimensional paradox, separate from our own.

Here's a video to help explain it a bit more.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Figure out how to un-break a glass window and I'll believe whatever you say.

I am not as well read on the subject as you, but retrocausality has interested me for awhile. IMO, it could be the explination for a few things. I played around with a story idea in which retrocausality was actually a hand of fate/destiny. There would be no free will because the future events directly determined the choices we make in the present.

BTW....what peaked my interest in this theory was looking into the "global consciousness" idea. I was reading about the random number generator that supposely told that there would be a traumatic experience for the world right before the 9/11 attacks. I stumbled across retrocausality being the explination and have had that thorn in my mind since. Thanks for posting about it!

Lingweenie
Hmmm, I suppose it is a possibility.

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But it makes sense to me.

we humans are operating in the third dimension, and we cannot perceive anything in the higher dimensions.

The ripples in time don't have to happen visibly in our third dimension.
They can happen outside what we can see and still effect our dimension.

Greetings,

As a trained spiritual mind practitioner I look at this subject from a different perspective.

There is but One Mind, the Creators Mind. Therefore your mind and the mind of the recipient is one, one with the One Mind.

Therefore there is a “correction” in the mind when forgiveness is introduced. Since mind transcends time and space the term “past event’ has no meaning. We are talking about a “correction” in the belief system that heals the illusion of separation from the Creator. It also heals the allusion of matter being real.

What is Real cannot be harmed. What is unreal does not exist. CIM

See; The Science of Mind text book, also, A Course in Miracles (CIM). Both are on line.

InverseLookingGlass
Figure out how to un-break a glass window and I'll believe whatever you say.

You guys are stuck on mundane 3D objects.
Look at the ENERGY from events that happen having a ripple effect across time.

Hitler .. mass murdering people ... the energy from that event on a metaphysical level ripples across time.
WE can't see the ripples because we are stuck in time.
But from the outside of time looking in, the energy ripples can be seen spreading across space/time.

FlyersFan

Look at the ENERGY from events that happen having a ripple effect across time.

WE can't see the ripples because we are stuck in time.
But from the outside of time looking in, the energy ripples can be seen spreading across space/time.

How do you know there are "ripples", if they cannot be seen from our perspective?
How do you know anything about what it appears like from the "outside" when we only know the "inside"?

Please watch this video and consider these questions if you are willing:

muzzleflash
How do you know there are "ripples", if they cannot be seen from our perspective?

I already said that I don't "KNOW" that this exists.
I said that it makes sense to me that it does.
If you can't see it ... fine.
But in my minds eye I can see it and it makes sense.

Your examples of objects 'running backwards' isn't what we are talking about ....

It's an energy ripple effect. Events in our future really have happened and are happening. But we are stuck in time and can't see them. We are like flat landers encountering a circle. Those not stuck in our time can see everything at once and see the effects. And any effects from the energy of those events will just seem normal to us because we can't see the ripple from this vantage point.

The ripple effect of events ... ripples in all 'time directions' ... makes sense to me.

FlyersFan
Can the future affect the present, and can the present affect the past?

If you are considering the future before doing something now then the future has effected the present.
If you realize something about the past now which you had not realized then, then it will change the past.

When things happen it is easy to misinterpret and later one may have an insight that one read it wrong.

There seems to be some confusion as to what the OP was actually about. Retrocausality isn't about perspective at all. It's not about time travel. It is actually the reversal of the normal cause->effect model. In this theory, the effect (future event) leads to the cause (present happenings). A simplified example might go something like this:

I will be hit by a train at the crossing on Smith street tomorrow morning. Retrocausality is what would cause a traffic jam on my normal route of Jones street making me take Smith instead.

The theory is made more interesting by the advances in quantam mechanics. The seeming ability for information to be transferred backwards in time and of particles to occupy multiple spaces concurrently lends some credence to the idea.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Interesting theory. I'd think influencing a past event from the present using three dimensional technology (CERN) would either not be possible or would result in an alternate branching timeline. Obviously this is not an issue for someone who is living outside of normal space time like a god. As we are not my best guess is we'd break something (split timeline) and probably never even know it. Fascinating.

Greetings,

There is no time. All events are happening simultaneously.

Since the body is an illusion there can be no death, hence no murder.

All events are psychological, that is, in the mind. Your mind cannot see a solid object since it does not exist. It sees energy patterns which it projects into the brain and you interpret as solid and real. Hitler believed death was the answer. He believed in the body, not the divine source within.

It's the "belief" in death that has to be corrected. A belief in death is a belief in darkness. Darkness, or death is a denial of the Creator. You are either in one state or another. A belief in death is your withdrawal from the Light. You have to choose one and stick with it.

This why the major religions have become dysfunctional, they believe in death.

www.lawofone.info...

I've spent a lot of time and effort on this forum addressing this issue, but to be honest, this guy does the best job of debunking the notion of retrocausality and the "illusion" of time than anyone's ever done. He also explains why the notion became acceptable within the fields pf physics and cosmology - which is probably the most valuable take-away of the book I've linked here.

Retrocausality fails in too many ways to cover in a simple forum post, so I would suggest that if you're actually interested in understanding the notion, and the fully factored out ramifications of retrocausality on a macrosystem (like our Universe, for instance) then a good place to start is Lee Smolin's "Time Reborn" (linked above). He's a world-class physicist, and does a really good job of presenting the full case for and against the issue.