Back From the Future

I'm not a a genius or even close, but within this article I see the possibility of precognition and such. If time runs like a river and we are facing up river, not flowing along with the current, then with practice and observation, we could learn to recognize the ripples of things yet to be before they get to us.

What are your thoughts on the this???

A series of quantum experiments shows that measurements performed in the future can influence the present. Does that mean the universe has a destiny—and the laws of physics pull us inexorably toward our prewritten fate?
by Zeeya Merali; photography by Adam Magya

discovermagazine.com...

reply to post by Tinman67


Interesting article.

This is precisely why I'm interested in Quantum Physics, every concept seems so illogical and yet logical at the same time, much like the uncertainty principle mentioned in the link.

Obviously, if the concept in the article is correct then it would go against the conventional definition of time:

Time has been defined as the continuum in which events occur in succession from the past to the present and on to the future

Link: en.wikipedia.org...

It takes a new approach to the idea of "destiny", traditionally the belief is that what happens in the future is already mapped out for us but bringing this idea into the picture would mean what happens in our present is defined by whats going to happen in the future.

Definitely ties the head in knots, but very intersting.

Star & Flag

The idea that future states of the world can account for the apparent indeterminacy that exists in quantum-scale events is so elegant and obvious (once it's been thought of) that one almost feels it has to be true. But it doesn't mean that time runs backwards or anything like that--it just means that the unfolding story of time isn't being written as we live it, which is how it feels to us, but is already written in full, complete to the final period. The future already exists.

Our journey through spacetime is like a reader's journey through a novel. As one turns the pages of the book, things happen, the story unfolds. The twists and turns of the plot are surprising and often confusing; it seems as if anything could happen next. But that, of course, is just a clever illusion created by the author's craft; what happens next is already written in the pages of the book, and cannot change no matter how many times, and by how many people, the book is read.

Some physicists like to treat time as just another spatial dimension. In this treatment, different times occupy different 'places' along the dimensional axis of time. Theoretically, one can move up and down this axis with equal ease. In practice, this is impossible for living beings and seemingly even for the universe as a whole (because of entropy). But all those past and future times are still there, even though they are for ever out of reach here in our eternal, illusory present.

The philosophical implications of this are very interesting. Free will, for example, turns out to be an illusion. Morality will have to be rebuilt from scratch. The idea that mind dominates matter will also have to be thrown out. Some may find these thoughts disturbing; they are also curiously liberating.

Time dosent exist

reply to post by Astyanax


Excellent post and analogy, just a few questions if you don't mind?

I really like the idea that time is like a book, i.e. the future have already been written so effectively there is no future in the traditional sense, only a further stage of the novel.

Who is the reader?

Who is the author?

Finally books, like any other forms of media, are interpreted in different ways. Assuming the reader of the book is the individual, that would mean both you and I have different interpretations of the story (our destiny) is my interpretation of what I'm reading shaping the outcome of the novel?

In a sense I'm effectively creating my own reality/destiny, because your future and my future will be different.

Or is the analogy of a book simply a method of illustrating the concept of time?

What happens at the end of the book?

Originally posted by ypperst
Time dosent exist

How would you define the period between your birth and your current age?

reply to post by ypperst


That was deep.
But seriously, explain..

Originally posted by ypperst
Time dosent exist

i agree...and disagree...time is simply a made-up entity by humans, to measure change. it was simple and easy to understand for all. the length of life for humans, the seasonal, as well as daily changes, in conjuction to the length of a humans life. nothing ever goes away, or dies, it simply changes.
however, time measurement is important to humans, because it eliminates chaos that we would otherwise experience without it.

Originally posted by jimmyx

Originally posted by ypperst
Time dosent exist

i agree...and disagree...time is simply a made-up entity by humans, to measure change. it was simple and easy to understand for all. the length of life for humans, the seasonal, as well as daily changes, in conjuction to the length of a humans life. nothing ever goes away, or dies, it simply changes.
however, time measurement is important to humans, because it eliminates chaos that we would otherwise experience without it.

I'd agree in a sense, time is a concept invented by humans to measure change but the whole debate becomes a lot more complex than that when you look deeper into it.

reply to post by Death_Kron


you are quite right, and is fodder for much more serious discussions, i was just speaking in broad terms

If time is running backwards, how come we can remember our past and not the future?

If the future does exist down one timeline of events and we are merely following that path then something will have to cause that timeline to occur. Cause and effect.

If however there are an infinity of paths which the person can follow and the decisions of that individual steers the person down his or her own individual path then we are alll truely alone.

This doesn't make sense to me. If I ran a computer program that on every hit of a key displayed a random million digit number, then a milion other people did the same, at the same time, think of how many alternate paths will be created. Then stagger the tme in every way possible of them million people hitting the key, that's alot of pathways.

What happens to the other you's?. Their conciousness will be the same as yours upto the point of the difference, creating that new timeline in an infinate number.

How far do you take this? A decision made by the person? A heartbeat? Changes on a celular level?

Why is it that everytime i think ive got a handle on the universe and i start to almost feel comfortable with my own personal theorys. Something like this comes along and totaly blows it out of the water.

I can already see my future.

Sitting in a mental home banging my head against a wall. I wish i never even started to get interested in quantum physics. I just get further away from understanding anything everytime i read something like this.

Needless to say i'll still wait with baited breath for the next mind shattering theory

Its like heroin. I know i should'nt but i cant say no!

Great thread

I agree, that the future is already written and that everything that has happened/is happening/will happen has already occurred and the grand picture has already been drawn/painted/dried.

Even if Time Travel were real, the final "picture" will have already taken into account the endless/countless cycles of time travel and their manipulations and outcome onto the final picture. The world we see is the result of that, as is the final picture.

The world we live in, the world we see, is already the final product of all these permutations.

I keep thinking the concept over. The power of positive thinking, deja vu, experiments with visualization, precognition.
I can't help but wonder, are we seeing relationships with these concepts and not "getting it" because we do not recognize time as we should.
The whole idea of a multi universe came about to explain our universe, as a tuned machine that is to perfect. One in which there would be a "tuner". Now this concept would suggest fate as a destination. That is, all that is, was and what will be already exists.

Very Deep stuff.

reply to post by Tinman67


It is certainly worth a look. They have been doing studies on human vision and have recently come to the conclusion that human eyes actually see the future, before the brain processes it to our conscious. The evidence they are basing it of off would be akin to throwing a book at someone. The person who is the target perceives this before it happens, allowing a response.

They estimate the eye/brain sees things like a 1/10 of a second before we actually comprehend it.

They also did a study on visual processing, where the eye processing actually ignores other motion, IE when you move your eyes around it appears as instantaneous, where you are not perceiving the eye movement itself, yet its still there. This is also the reason we don't get "motion sickness" while looking around.

I know i'm probably explaining this wrong, but you get the idea. I will look for the article and link it in. Its an intresting concept.

EDIT to add: Humans can see the Future?

Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says it starts with a neural lag that most everyone experiences while awake. When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world. Scientists already knew about the lag, yet they have debated over exactly how we compensate, with one school of thought proposing our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay. Changizi now says it's our visual system that has evolved to compensate for neural delays, generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future.

reply to post by Death_Kron

Who is the reader?

Who is the author?

The reader is you, and everybody else. The reader is also the universe itself, manifesting the contents of the 'book' the way a ribosome in one of your cells manifests RNA instructions as proteins, without any conscious intervention whatsoever.

The author is God, if you believe in one. But the book of eternity needs no author; that which transcends time need have no boundaries or origins.

Finally books, like any other forms of media, are interpreted in different ways. Assuming the reader of the book is the individual, that would mean both you and I have different interpretations of the story (our destiny) is my interpretation of what I'm reading shaping the outcome of the novel?

In a sense I'm effectively creating my own reality/destiny, because your future and my future will be different.

You and I both live in the same world. We can compare notes and see that it is the same. Though our individual experiences of it are different, we can establish easily enough that we inhabit the same gallery of spacetime. There is plenty of room for interpretation, but none for creating or changing reality, because in this hypothesis the future already exists, immutable.

Assuming the Many Worlds interpretation, you might be able to swap worldlines and 'change the future' by changing universes. But if I'm not mistaken, the Many Worlds interpretation is something this hypothesis is designed to eliminate.

What happens at the end of the book?

How can such a book have an end--or a beginning?

*

reply to post by Tykonos

If time is running backwards, how come we can remember our past and not the future?

It's not running backwards. The point about this idea is that time isn't 'running' at all. We move from one point along the time continuum to another. Or perhaps we only think we do, but in this sense perception truly is reality. Apparent movement through time at a rate of one second per second is our reality.

*

reply to post by Tinman67

I keep thinking the concept over. The power of positive thinking, deja vu, experiments with visualization, precognition. I can't help but wonder, are we seeing relationships with these concepts and not "getting it" because we do not recognize time as we should?

I can see how déja vu, precognition and clairvoyance ('experiments with visualization') could be the result of non-orthodox movement along the time axis, though no-one has the faintest idea how such things can be done.

'Positive thinking' (making wishes come true) is something different, though. This would involve accepting the Many Worlds interpretation and believing that it was possible to move ourselves physically from one world-line to another. It would mean travelling between nearly identical universes. That raises all kinds of paradoxical questions, such as what happens to the 'you' who already lives in the universe to which you're transferring. The hypothesis we're discussing eliminates the many-worlds interpretation, though.

Surely experience tells us that wishes don't come true any more often than the law of averages allows for?

The whole idea of a multi universe came about to explain our universe, as a tuned machine that is to perfect. One in which there would be a "tuner".

Actually, the concept of multiple universes was brought about to eliminate the 'tuner'. If there was only one universe, fine-tuned for life, we might suspect the existence of a divine Tuner. But if there are a multitude of universes, the universal constants--the numbers that need to be 'tuned'--could have different values in different ones. The constants would be 'tuned for life' in only a few of these universes; the others would be hostile to life. Amid this plethora of universes, the Copernican Principle is conserved.

Now this concept would suggest fate as a destination. That is, all that is, was and what will be already exists.

Correct. But this is what science has always told us--barring the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, which no-one really understands yet. Hypotheses like the one we're discussing are devised to rid us of those paradoxes by eliminating quantum uncertainty, the observer effect and so on.

Deep stuff everyone, good thread. S&F

Think about this. Are we ( the universe as a hole itself) a manifestation of the/a divine creation, or the divine creator itself.

Thinking of the universe as a peace of art or a well written book is a tough hurdle to jump over.

Face it, from your point of view, your all that will ever be, and all that ever was.

Even if the universe is a well written book from beginning to end, you could never read it all, and time is how it would be read i guess.

To understand space/time is a extremely difficult thing to rap ones head around, any you all know it.

Possibly more thoughts latter.

This thread is quiet enlightening, and overloading.