Fire and Knowledge

I read an article on how science hopes to change events that have already occurred. The title was so frightening that I had to read it. I mean, science changing the future is scary enough — but the past? What are we going to change? For the few things we could actually change for the better (though I doubt we could change anything without messing everything else up) there would be countless tragedies. For the doctor who cures a plague (which of course would change the outcome of everything today, so the doctor would no longer exist, and thus the cure could never have happened… oh the paradoxes of retrocausality!), there would be countless crimes. For instance, someone with a grudge against America could go back to 1776 with a machine gun.

Researchers are on the verge of experiments that will finally hold retrocausality’s feet to the fire by attempting to send a signal to the past…. If retrocausality is confirmed — and that is a huge if — it would overturn our most cherished notions about the nature of cause and effect and how the universe works.

First, how would we confirm a signal to the distant past? Who would know how to confirm it to us? Second, if the future had sent a message to the past, wouldn’t we already know about it? And thirdly, if this was really possible, wouldn’t our entire past be filled with messages and people (and advertisements!) from the future?

If retrocausality is real, it might even explain why life exists in the universe — exactly why the universe is so “finely tuned” for human habitation.

Let me get this straight. We were created. Then we realized it was impossible for us to be created, so we created ourselves through retrocausality. That sounds like a lot of nonsense to me.

Regardless, we can’t even get the present in order. What business do we have with the past if we can’t even deal with the present responsibly? Let’s try and fix our present before we even attempt to meddle with the past.