4 ms·
What about the future affecting the past? Rather than A+B, there is A. In this scenario, you don’t go to the past, you were/are already there. In other words,
by state_less 5y ago
What about the future affecting the past? Rather than A+B, there is A. In this scenario, you don’t go to the past, you were/are already there. In other words, there never was a past without you in it. You never could go back and kill your mother/father since it would break a causal loop. You may think you have the agency to do so, but try as you might, you won’t/don’t.
- justinpombrio 5y agoWhat this means is that the universe is solving a fixpoint equation: find a history that is self-consistent. The question this raises is, which one does it pick? There are infinitely many to choose from, and no clear criteria that I know of. You can have a fixpoint where someone is their own parent, but what chose this fixpoint over any other? I don't mean "woah man, who get's to decide?", I mean "this description of physics is incomplete; to complete it you need to specify the method of selecting which fixpoint gets chosen".
- state_less 5y agoI’m not sure how self consistent histories might be chosen. It seems like some futures should be more common based on our physical understanding. Maybe they are all there (many worlds) and we happen to find ourselves in the compatible (most common?) ones.