Science hopes to change events that have already occurred.

[infinitethoughts]

Science hopes to change events that have already occurred
Patrick Barry
Sunday, January 21, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle.


In 1986, Carroll Alley at the University of Maryland at College Park, found a way to test this idea using a more practical set-up: an interferometer which lets a photon take either one path or two after passing through a beam splitter. Sure enough, the photon's path depended on a choice made after the photon had to "make up its mind." Other groups have confirmed similar results, and at first blush this appears to show the present affecting the past. Most physicists, however, take the view that you can't say which path the photon took before the measurement is made. In other words, still no unambiguous evidence for retrocausality.

That's where John Cramer comes in.....

[PianoManGidley]

I thought this line was particularly unique: "While it would mean we cannot change the past, it also implies that we cannot change the future."

In other words, if retrocausality is proven to be true, this could also potentially prove the concept of destiny...or at least a semblence of it. However, if conscious minds retrocaused the shaping of the universe to be sufficient for life, as the article propose plausible should retrocausality be proven true, that begs some other questions as well: Why wouldn't conscious minds shape the universe to provide us with more advanced life for ourselves, or life that does not require cessation? Also, this would suggest that all the information of the universe's total existence along the span of all time was already preset--all of our lives were already set in stone, so what greater force set up such a complex weaving of detailed intricacies?

[Gukkor]

Retrocausality is, as I see it, a logical contradiction. If an effect actually results in the cause, rather than the other way around, then the two events have just switched roles (the cause became the effect, the effect became the cause), and we're still left with a typical causal scenario. You can't have "reverse causality" anymore than you can have "reverse change."

[PianoManGidley]

Originally Posted by Gukkor

Retrocausality is, as I see it, a logical contradiction. If an effect actually results in the cause, rather than the other way around, then the two events have just switched roles (the cause became the effect, the effect became the cause), and we're still left with a typical causal scenario. You can't have "reverse causality" anymore than you can have "reverse change."

But then, your argument basis itself in a strictly linear and one-directional view of time, whereas the article was based on a different view of time, as stated by the expert physicists who have studied it.

[Gukkor]

Originally Posted by PianoManGidley

But then, your argument basis itself in a strictly linear and one-directional view of time, whereas the article was based on a different view of time, as stated by the expert physicists who have studied it.

True, but I'd say the linear, one-directional view of time has a bit more precedent than these physicists' view. I'm not denying that their theory's a valid one from a technical standpoint; I just don't think it'll pan out.

[Cantando]

If I could change an event in the past, like getting my current job, then I wouldn't be here right now, in a position to do that.