1 TollaksenÂ’s group is looking into the notion that time might flow backward, allowing the future to influence the past.

Well since the "scientists" promoting AGW have already called for heat to flow from cold areas to warm areas I guess anything is possible.

2 I bet the math for that would make your head hurt.

3 A succession of quantum experiments confirm its predictions—showing, bafflingly, that measurements performed in the future can influence results that happened before those measurements were ever made.

Crazy stuff happens on the quantum level.  That doesn't mean in happens on the macro level.

4

Let's never say the word "God" around scientists, though!

5 string theory?

6 Reverse causality makes perfect sense to me.

7 Could this be the antidote for what ails us?

8 This is a repeat from 1926.

9 I'm reading this article while holding a Powerball lottery ticket.  I'll tell you next week if it's true or not.

10 And yet, as crazy as it sounds, this notion of reverse causality is gaining ground. A succession of quantum experiments confirm its predictions— Hmmm. Predictions about reverse causality ... confirmed by a succession of experiments ... I see ... Yep.

11 #3  Crazy stuff happens on the quantum level.  That doesn't mean in happens on the macro level.

Yeppers.  And we make the same mistake with political systems.  Just because Communism looks like it'll work on paper doesn't mean it'll still work when it's extrapolated to the real world.

12 "A succession of quantum experiments confirm its predictions—showing, bafflingly, that measurements performed in the future can influence results that happened before those measurements were ever made."

How can measuring something in the future influence it in the past?  That makes no sense to me. 

13 From the first paragraph:

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?

Well, let's see now.  Some experiments that I plan to perform tomorrow effects what happens right now?  What does Heisenberg and Schrödinger have to say about this?

14 I can haz flowcart on backwards/fowards destiny thingy??

15 Ugh, you're not going to postulate that the cloud over the Chinese town was a space ship are you?

This was the most normal site I found....

16 Use reverse causality to solve the Gulf Coast oil disaster.

Reverse causality sounds like revisionist explanation after the fact, cheap rationalization.

But that won't stop Obama from championing reverse causality to excuse his many illegal acts as if legal in the end.

17 " That makes no sense to me. " Oh, ye of little faith...

18 Hmm.  My Blade of Chaos is throbbing.  I must be beating it into a plowshare in the future.

19 "17 " That makes no sense to me. "

Oh, ye of little faith...

Posted by: Nancy Pelosi at June 01, 2010 02:46 PM (VXBR1)"

Hey you are wearing a head covering in that picture on drudge and you have no conception of what true Catholics really believe and me and my buds have been wondering if you became a secret muslim.....so pipe it...

20 How can measuring something in the future influence it in the past?  That makes no sense to me. 

Posted by: curious at June 01, 2010 02:44 PM (p302b)

Did you see the theory that the Higgs Boson travels back into the past to glitch experiments that would reveal it?

21 I'm going to give myself tonight's lottery numbers tomorrow morning.

22 Someone's going to divide by zero in the course of this "experiment."  See you all on the other side of the event horizon.

23 TollaksenÂ’s group is looking into the notion that time might flow backward, allowing the future to influence the past. By extension, the universe might have a destiny that reaches back and conspires with the past to bring the present into view. On a cosmic scale, this idea could help explain how life arose in the universe against tremendous odds. On a personal scale, it may make us question whether fate is pulling us forward and whether we have free will.


Truly, the Hopper found his latest prophet!  In death, he is only more powerful.

What revelations will come next?

24 Those "into" time travel or mind projection speak of going forward, not backwards in time, and generally agree that going backwards is not viable. Just saying.

25 Posted by: FUBAR at June 01, 2010 02:47 PM (1fanL)

You mean the Japanese scientist saying that CERN was being compromised by people in the future?  

26 How can measuring something in the future influence it in the past?  We used to call that "fudging data". Sometimes you just had to do it. That makes no sense to me.  Posted by: curious at June 01, 2010 02:44 PM (p302b) Since logic and reason depend, totally, on unidirectional causality, that's a good sign.

27 I'm going to give myself tonight's lottery numbers tomorrow morning.

Posted by: rdbrewer at June 01, 2010 02:47 PM (az47l)

...   ...   Yeeaah?  Then what?

28 Reverse causality? I am, therefore I think.

Sorry. Not buying whatever I just said.

29 "Posted by: curious at June 01, 2010 02:47 PM (p302b)" I am the Way, the Truth, the Light. No one cometh to the public tit except by me.

30 Posted by: FUBAR at June 01, 2010 02:50 PM (1fanL)

I guess, according to this theory, just the fact that she got them will somehow allow her to influence them to the numbers she wants the next day?

31

this idea could help explain how life arose in the universe against tremendous odds

Uh... the only possible observable universe is one in which the observer can exist. The odds are irrelevant.

Look up "anthropic principle" in cosmology texts.

32 You mean the Japanese scientist saying that CERN was being compromised by people in the future?  

Posted by: curious at June 01, 2010 02:49 PM (p302b)

Haha, first I've heard of that one.  No, this was the particle itself traveling back in time and preventing its discovery.

33 All I can say is that, if he were alive, Einstein would beat the living shit out of Tollaksen. In fact, if Tollaksen is correct, Einstein might be beating the shit out of his parents, right now, in 1943.

34

Then what?

Spend it!

35

showing, bafflingly, that measurements performed in the future can influence results that happened before those measurements were ever made.

 

I guess we have folks with measuring equipment traveling forward in time.  Can they copy off some football scores for me while they're there? 

36 Posted by: FUBAR at June 01, 2010 02:52 PM (1fanL)

heard about the japanese scientist in a bar, guys seem to think they have to talk to me about things they perceive as "very intelligent forward thinking stuff" so I learn a lot of odd minutia.

37 #12  How can measuring something in the future influence it in the past?  That makes no sense to me.

It made sense to us!  Watch our movie!

38 The Trolls on Pratchett's Disk World believe this.

Like Judy Tenuta says: "It could happen!"

It would explain people believing that some dreams are portents of future events.

I myself have had a couple that were fairly specific. Keep in mind though that seeing into the future is like peering into a room through a keyhole or seeing a distant city from a hilltop but not being able to see the land between yourself and it due to other hills in the way.

In other words: IT AIN'T VERY USEFUL.

Although 1 1/2 years ago, anyone with an ounce of love for this country could tell we'd be in the shit by now. Just not how much or what the specifics would be.

39 "Sorry kid, but it was your destiny to get tranked with Jesus Juice and have your butt split by The King of Pop. Shit luck, but hey - the science is settled."

40 Posted by: steve at June 01, 2010 02:53 PM (glQ/d)

Tesla?

41 Time travel into the past is obviously not possible.  The fact that no one came back from the future to warn us about the 2008 elections proves that either (1) projection into the past is impossible, or (2) the current Administration has successfully destroyed the universe prior to the next election.

Just sayin'.

42 I don't see what's so hard to understand. All you need is a DeLorean and enough room to get to 88 mph ...

43 that measurements performed in the future can influence results that happened before those measurements were ever made.

Not a sciency guy obviously, but I predict in the future that I will think this is total bs right now. _{Past performance is no guarantee of future results and other fine print.}

44 This reminds me of day 1 in philosophy 1 when the prof asked "if a tree falls in the forest does it make a noise if there is no one around to hear the noise"?

45 curious about pelosi

Catholic women in Nancy's day all covered their heads entering their sanctuary, when the nuns' uniform covered everything top to bottom except their face.  From 1940s-early60s most American women in public wore scarfs and hats as well as white gloves. Of the "Greatest Generation" during their youth and prime, no self respecting person went bare headed in public.

46 Gut says absolute nonsense, but I'll read the article.

47 Do not vote for Barack Obama.  The outcome will be worse than you can possibly imagine.

48 In other words: IT AIN'T VERY USEFUL. Posted by: jakee308 at June 01, 2010 02:54 PM (0C5Fe) Without normal causality, the word "useful" has no use. In fact, without causality, almost no language has any use. For mathematics, the situation is far worse. Proof Theory is really going to take this hard.

49 Reverse causality? I am, therefore I think.
Sorry. Not buying whatever I just said.
Posted by: Liberals and Joy Behar, But Mostly Joy Behar

heh, since she doesn't "think" she isn't.

50 If this is true, we better make sure we take those measurements now, otherwise the future will have no measurements.

51 Without normal causality, the word "useful" has no use. In fact, without causality, almost no language has any use. For mathematics, the situation is far worse. Proof Theory is really going to take this hard.

Since Physicists can't even figure out what light is, I'm not too worried.

52 I guess we have folks with measuring equipment traveling forward in time.

Of course we do, one second at a time, because the Future is NOW!  no, wait, NOW!  dammit, NOW!




NOW!

53 First!

54 Any chance that beyond November 11, 2010, that by rescinding Obamacare we'll have never had the law created in the first place?

Any other chance that by not having the law in the first place, it reimpacts events such that the law is created de novo again?

Any other, other chance we get caught in a neverending, torturous, inescapable loop - aka The Groundhog Effect? 'cause that would be my 9/11.

55 Last!
...shall be first

56 Baby, the Higgs boson demands we do it. It's science!

57

Has anybody heard from Al Gore on this?

Now that AGW is ghasping for breath the "Scientist" are going to give us a new "Sky is Falling" scenerio to occupy us?  And fund?

Follow the money.

58 55 First!

I saw what you will do there.

59 Hawking thinks we can travel forward in time, but never back otherwise you would mess up the whole continuum thing, so if you are going to go forward remember you have to stay there until we catch up, so go to the bathroom first.

60 "This reminds me of day 1 in philosophy 1 when the prof asked..."

And this is why liberal arts degrees are often held in such high esteem. Like a neo-Harvard degree.

61 Since Physicists can't even figure out what light is, I'm not too worried. Posted by: AmishDude at June 01, 2010 03:02 PM (T0NGe) You don't think you're worried, but some yahoo is going to do an experiment fifty years from now that will make you, now, worried. So, you are worried; you just don't know it. Pop psychology meets physics! Can we get some NSF funding for this? For 3 billion dollars, I can design and run an experiment that will retroactively lower the Earth's temperature over the 20th century. Global warming will be a thing of the past ... er, of the non-past.

62 Time as we understand it, is a relatively sketchy notion at the sub atomic level where things seem to operate more like Alice in Wonderland.

63 I just took a measurement, and its twice as long and twice as wide, my wife should be happy in the future.


_{(preemptive attack on your "so its 2 inches now?" post, thereby affecting the future)}

64 Of course you realize, this means temporal war.

65  Strange. Anyone else read Neal Stephenson's latest book, Anathem?  This is exactly what Stephenson wrote a 900+ page novel about.

66 Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at June 01, 2010 03:07 PM (swuwV)

hey, it was an easy A...everything else I was taking was difficult challenging stuff....

and, I took 18 credits a semester...I understand now they take the minimum 12 and then take 5 years to complete the degree, if ever.

67 Posted by: maverick muse at June 01, 2010 02:58 PM (H+LJc)

seriously?  so guess being a milliner was a lucrative profession at one time.

68
So...with the right set of measurments, we can make sure ol' Jugears doesn't get elected in 2008?

Better yet: no only doesn't he get elected, but I hookup with Scarlet Johannsen.

69

Sonofabitch!!!

I have postulated this to people for over a decade!

Honest to god, I love to raise the question of whether or not we live in a sort of oblong presence on our given time-line since all our awareness via our physical senses are by necessity in the past. Something has to have happened in order for us to experience any sensation of it. And not all senses are equally delayed, yet our awareness overlays our senses to the greatest extent. So therefore our real persona exists in the future relative to our tactile awareness. Surely some sense of the relative future that our real person is in is past into the mix of processed information creating our awareness. Which begs the question; how far from the future can this connection connect and what can our persona do with this non tactile input. It is the lack of understanding that connection that limits our ability to know whether or not we can sense into the future and if so, how far.

It's a very difficult concept to share in just one written paragraph, but maybe you get what I'm saying. If this concept of mine were true, then we would all be susceptible to following an unrecognized 6th sense like a dog might follow his sense of smell with no awareness that he was doing so.

It would certainly explain why I have a horrible sense of foreboding every time I contemplate Obama and the DemocRATs.

70 Humbug. Quantum phenomena only apply to things at the subatomic level. Scientist has watched too many episodes of Lost, says me.

71

How can measuring something in the future influence it in the past? 

How do you think that Hanen, Mann, et. al. come up with their global warming. 

72 curious@69,

Oh, I was required to waste some time in those, too. My high school classes were more demanding. The sciences and labs, however, were various shades of "more trying," particularly because I was running my own business through my undergrad. It took me longer than four years, too. College wasn't that much fun, but the liberal arts stuff was such a relative joke that it required almost no effort... which was nice.

73

I'm with you, Ciz.  "Faith."  "The power of thinking positively."  You hear all about it in different ways.  Supposedly, you create the present and the future with your knowing-approach in the future. 

And people like me walk around in the doldrums and get "bad luck."  My faith broke.  My present state of mind caused the past and the future my now.  It all fits. 

I thought when we're born, maybe, we're entangled with something in a quantum state that creates a "set point" with regard to aspects of life that we always return to--analogous to body mass set point.

Pass me that fatty again.

74 Personally I laugh a lot at all these things they postulate at the sub-sub-atomic level.  These are the things that make up the neutrons, protons, and electrons.

The thing is is that ALL of these things are based on observed interactions of of atomic collisions in accelerators and postulating why they act the way they do. 

Personally it looks like a lot of it is just pure "reaching" to me and a lot of this crap they push under the auspices of "quantum theory" is simply fantasy.

Stuff like the electrons behavior instead of a being in the classical "cloud" model they actually "pop in and out of the universe"....pure fantasy. 

75

What does Heisenberg and Schrödinger have to say about this?

The cat is still considering whether to drop dead from the brain fart generated by thinking of quantum causality.

76 Ok, which Higgs-Boson is going to conspire to get rid of the boring-ass Gore story?

77

The Deja Vu theory.

Methinks God is simply screwing with them.

78

I waited and waited for the cast of Lost, and the cast of Uneventful Flight From Sydney to LA, to become aware of each other and go on a quest to merge to two timelines.  Before the universe explodes.  It will sound more credible when the creepy scientist says it.

And what makes this idea interesting is that one person will have a good life, and the alternate self is very unhappy.

The clues were there, I could have wrote the damn thing myself and it might have been better than the finale.

 

79 Back in 1834, quantum physicists used to call this kismet.

80 Stuff like the electrons behavior instead of a being in the classical "cloud" model they actually "pop in and out of the universe"....pure fantasy. It's really not (pure fantasy). While you're right to laugh at many of these random ideas being floated, you're doing it at the wrong ones, for the wrong reasons. The 'problem' with much of these concepts is that the mathematics is undeniably correct; it's discovering the right mapping between the math and our universe is much harder. The classical example is the Copenhagen Vs. Everett's multiple-worlds interpretation. This is because, as you attributed to fantasy, the underlying physics of the universe is vastly different and weirder that we can imagine, which isn't necessarily unexpected since we've evolved our cognitive capacities mainly for advanced hunting strategies and the like. The ability to do physics and comprehend the universe at the level we do is something of a bonus. And the universe is likely to be almost fantasy compared to our perceptual view of it. The work into Blackhole thermodynamics and the Holographic Principles (perhaps the neatest thing to come out of string theory, and maybe the most lasting) is pretty convincing.

81 Really, doesn't destiny have better things to do than conspire to make me write this post?

82 The work into Blackhole thermodynamics and the Holographic Principles (perhaps the neatest thing to come out of string theory, and maybe the most lasting) is pretty convincing.

So is a good SF novel when you read it. As I said 90% pure reaching for plausibility and a lot of fantasy.

83 If I can convince my wife that this is true, I can get her to believe that she is responsible for what I did yesterday because of what she will do tomorrow.

84 65 - 2x wide? her ass?

85 I suppose everyone noticed that the posted date on the article is April 1rst?

86

 "On a cosmic scale, this idea could help explain how life arose in the universe against tremendous odds..."

Unless life is as inevitable as the formation of ice and sand for certain temperature zones around any vaguely yellow star.  This new(old) Theory of Destiny is supposed to explain something that may not be true at all, kind of like all the greenhouse gas theory produced to explain the warming of our (apparently) cooling earth.  On a cosmic scale, these ass monkies in white lab coats should check and see if we are in fact super special cosmic oddities before explaining why it is so.

I have the Miller/Urey Experiment on my side.  What you got, Future Boy?

 

87 So is a good SF novel when you read it. As I said 90% pure reaching for plausibility and a lot of fantasy. Eh, think as you wish. Thermodynamics/statistical mechanics isn't fantastic at all, it's (blackhole thermodynamics) pretty solid work into teasing out that mapping I mentioned before. You should check it out when you get a chance. I have the Miller/Urey Experiment on my side No you don't, it's quite a leap from M/U to life. Besides, if it's that common you have to explain why we don't see the narrow-band transmissions or energy outflows from even a single one of them. Given the hypothesis of life being common in our hubble volume, us being late on the cosmic scene and 50years of listening -- your hypothesis is starting to look pretty shitty. But, I'm done here. Been fun.

88 The Gospel According to the Speaker of the House: Well, Everybody's Heard About The Word!!!: A Theological Exposition By Nancy Pelosi

89 So, this means that President Bush did cause the Gulf Oil Spill... President Jenna Bush!

90 Well I had a 3.97 in Thermo and I don't remember shit "popping in and out of the universe". Of course that was 40 damn years ago and we concentrated on real life problems instead of fantasy.

91 Well, Everybody's Heard About The Word!!!: A Theological Exposition By Nancy Pelosi

Well in David Edding's universe they have the "Will and the Word".  All it requires to make something happen is focus your will and say the "word" and it happens.

In our universe we have the Will but it can't be focused because it is Will Folks and not Focus. We have the word as well, but like all words coming form this crowd of commies it is a lie. 

92 Don't you know about the Word? Really, that's all I'll say.... There are very powerful forces at work trying to get me to acknowledge that the Word.... That's it. I'll say no more. honestly....

93
Well, Everybody's Heard About The Word!!!: A Theological Exposition By Nancy Pelosi

Posted by: naturalfake at June 01, 2010 05:24 PM (+kzvp)

Byrd Byrd Byrd. Byrd is the word.

94 New Force Postulated in PhysicsGarandFan's Corollary: Bullshit has magical properties. It can be dressed up in many ways, but always remains the same. It can be packaged in many different forms. You can put 5 lbs. in a 10 lb. brown bag and it will fill it to the top. You can put that same 5 lbs. in a gold foil 2 lb. bag, and it will still fit. Magical stuff.

95 Calvinist's rejoice! Perhaps you have been right all along.

96

it's old. the tubes had an album called 'completion backwards principle'.

 

97 How can measuring something in the future influence it in the past?  That makes no sense to me. 
Posted by: curious

Here's my take

start in the past with 6 full bottles of beer

you drink all the beer in the past

presently you have a screaming hangover because you drank 6 120min IPA's.
It seemed like the thing to do at the time.

The future rolls around and you look for another one of the fine IPA's.

You find one, you drink it and damn, you spit it out.
You pissed in one of the bottles the night before to prove the brilliant theory and it worked.

My future influenced my past.

98 General Relativity is a set of differential equations for which there are many mathematical solutions, most of which are unreal.  One of the tests for these solutions is to see if they allow for wormholes, warped space, and the like in which backwards time travel is possible.  If the solution allows this, into the trash it goes.  Sorry SciFi lovers.

There is one useless possibility.  Antimatter particles, to some extent, look like normal matter traveling backwards in time.  The wormholes always take enormous energies to create.  Enough to turn normal matter into antimatter.  This doesn't change the progression of entropy so the hapless would be time traveler continues to move forward in time.  Just don't be the first one to shake the hand of the guy who went through the wormhole to go back in time.

The real problem with time travel, is you do not want to go back in time.  You would lose your memory of why you did so.  You want to continue to move forward in time with your memory intact while the entire rest of the universe is pushed back in time to the point that you want to change.  You might have a slight problem with the inertia of the entire universe.

99

For an indepth, but semi moron-friendly discussion of this, go to NPR.org and do a search for 13.7.  You'll find a blog run by professor-types that have been discussing this and other related issues. 

Read everything you can by Stuart Kaufman. 

Then register on the site so that you can whoop on the anti-semites who are commenting on Israel's latest actions.

100 I can't believe the word "teleology" hasn't come up on this thread.

101 After seeing that picture of nan p on drudge today I have been so annoyed.  Mostly because I have trouble tolerating hypocrites.   the anchoress has a great post about this and anne althouse, a poll:


Pray for Nancy Pelosi

Nancy and The Word

102 Just when I thought I was out... Read everything you can by Stuart Kaufman I had to agree with this topic. Read "Origins of Order" in HS and fell in love with mathematical biology. Actually, I never returned that book to the library.. woops. Well I had a 3.97 in Thermo and I don't remember shit "popping in and out of the universe". Alright! I give you the electron example, if people say that about electrons. And congratulations on doing well! But, here's a pretty introductory article on virtual particles "popping in and out": http://tinyurl.com/2e5l4mk

103

@103, the reason you don't see "teleology" is that the smart-asses who took Philosophy for Those Needing One Elective never took the second course. They're all experts in that tree in the forest thing, though.

This is about as good an argument as the one that uses a kick in the balls to demonstrate the relativity of time. Gives the frosh some heavy shit to contemplate, the first time they get stoned.

Other hand, solar experts are having a hard time accounting for the sun's behavior lately. Someone suggested they factor in the pull of Jupiter on the solar surface, and it turned out the only ones keeping track of that for the last several centuries were...astrologers. As Newton sheweth, even in the midst of  crazy, sometimes science breaks out.  

104 I've always wondered.  They say that shit exists in a sort of quantum soup until observation causes the wave function to collapse.  Right, okay, so that left the question of how everything else could possibly exist before the rise of, well, eyes.

So they answered it.  Time travel.  Well, shit, why not.  I mean it worked on Lost.

105

So wait a minute... this whole concept basically means boobs were destined to spill out of a hot chick's tube top from the moment a middle aged geezer remembered the scene 30 years later?

 

Awesome.

106

I think what is going on is likely the "reverse motion" effect:

 

To wit: when you run a movie in a reverse, it is impossible to realize that it is running backwards until you see something like a ball falling up, etc.  If the ball is simply rolling across the floor, there is no way to know if the movie is running forward or backwards.  A car moving backwards may simply be backing up.  A person walking backwards could just be "moonwalking" (indeed, depending on the exact view even a ball "falling up" could actually be a ball being thrown). 

 

I suspect "reverse causality" is in reality a function similar to this effect, instead of some sort of magicial "destiny."

107

This is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to explain to my parents back when I was a kid. 

Now, it's the kind of thing I try to explain to loan underwriters. 

108 xxx

109

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