Does the Future Already Exist?

[Gibsense]

Carlo Rovelli in his book "White Holes" wrestles with time. He says the past is 'written' and the future is 'open'. These are my words and my interpretation.
I disagree on both counts!

I will just address one for now; the future. The idea that the future is 'open' (implying anything can happen) is, to me, incorrect. The future is simply a variety of possibilities that arise from history. The past restricts the openness of the future.

It seems then that the future has more reality than the past in that the only consequence of the past is how it has "set up" the future(s). It has restricted the possibilities (assuming that macro scientific laws still apply). The future then has some defined reality.

In a sense, the future exists but is subject to modification. This may seem obvious but think of this....
What if the process has happened before? What if in the past ( the previous processes past) the future was defined? What if then the future is defined already and guess what(?) here we come to change it??

Here we have it Fate and Free Will reconciled! But, what relevance might this have to cosmology and White Holes?

 

[Classical Motion]

All living things have the same future.

 

[Gibsense]

All living things have the same future

Do you mean there is a future and we are all in it together - the same future

 

[Rangerer]

"Future" is speculative at best, and does not, will not ever exist. It's a human nickname that translates into something like "but what if I ..." - there is no reality to "future," it does not exist.

 

[Classical Motion]

We can't change the future, it is set with the past. But we can change the future's future, if we change our future......according to the past.

But all living future is always a life ending future. And that future may become present at any time.

 

[Rangerer]

One cannot change the non-existent.

 

[Questioner]

My thinking is, the future is not fixed.
It may be guided by some limiting degrees of freedom, but I'm not sure that is itself absolute.

It could be future instants come in any number of spatial dimensions, but without exception the future instants we have ever experienced are [with a space expansion fudge factor] always 3D.

I still like the idea that tachyons, which of necessity must travel backwards in time, catch and bind some quasi-future instant to the extant stack of previous instants and plunge into that past.
That tachyons are holding & binding the de-energized past sequence together.

Our definition of time is rooted in the idea of a fixed, unchangeable past. That the sequencing of the past is what gives any sense to the meaning of time.

We imaginarily project an inverted sequence 'past' as a notion of the/a sequenced future.

I suppose it seems like there is some regular mechanism manufacturing time sequence, but that could be an illusion of how we view it,
after the fact as it were.

 

[Rangerer]

There certainly is no concrete future; "future" is a human concept to help them deal with existing in the moment; it is as old as Homo Sapiens, I believe. We believe we "remember" the past, when the data is clear, we don't. A concept is not a reality, nor anything of substance nor energy, nor even potential. It's a conventional myth. However, the use of the concept, like building for the future, is really based on how much we remember, and then we conceptually extend our suppositions into the "future" to test our assumptions; but that's all everyday stuff; there is no science of future, because it is not real. The notions of tachyons manipulating time is at the quantum level, and a supremely local event, and carries none of its temporal state consequences into the macro world, I assume because there just isn't enough energy to reach it.
The past is immutable. The only things we can experience are in this one moment. We all live inside a single moment. Past and future may provide information to influence conceptual issues, but practically, in the Newtonian world, time is an arrow, and we are always and only in this real, present moment.

 

[Questioner]

It could be that [all?] energy is completely a function of now, this instant.
The past probably has virtually no energy which is why it is fixed,
Which coincides with tachyons gaining speed as they lose energy.

The 2nd law of thermal dynamics strongly suggest that now is a largely closed envelope of energy.

DE would suggest it isn't absolutely closed.
So some additional energy must be coming as the quasi-futures are knitted into the past sequence.

 

[COLGeek]

Reality is not "taped". You can't go back in time, nor forward. There is no "skipping" forward nor backward.

Sorry, but thems the facts.

 

[Rangerer]

"You can't go back in time, nor forward" Well, in the macro-world that is correct I think; in the quantum world, very tiny, local things happen, maybe influenced by forces/energies/dimensions we cannot perceive, in a very tiny space. Within those tiniest of spaces, it seems entirely possible that (as in theorized tachyon behavior) it may be possible for time to be disrupted. So for a teeny time, in a tiny place that we'll never see, momentary aberrations may occur, but simply have no non-local effects.
WE cannot go in any time direction but "forward"; quantum behavior seems to indicate it can.
I never considered that the falling apple, which is said to have hit Newton, was capable of going back up, here on Earth. Again, time is a construct to help us sort out the world, but we only exist in a single moment, the 'now'.

 

[Questioner]

Yes, at the quantum level there's temporal ambiguity,
where future outcomes affect the past/present.

To re-energize the virtually de-energized past probably takes unbelievable amounts of energy.

It would reanimate the affected portion of the past in a sense making it part of the now energy quantity.
That might mean violating the 2nd law of thermal dynamics, at least for some duration.

Technically it may not be impossible, but effectively it probably is,
and for what temporal re-engineering purpose that was 'worth' it?

 

[Atlan0001]

What causes time is timeless (spontaneous entangling concurrent (t=0) REALTIME NOW (t=0) instant is timeless). I repeat . . . in his imagined "mind's eye trip to the speed of light" Einstein 'discovered' the "timeless (t=0)" source spring of time ((t=+1) |0| (t=-1)) always being recorded in light's coordinate point past-future histories SPACETIME photo-frame holographical offshoot . . . aka the 0-point dimensional (massless) photon in which magnitudinous life zone energy (in which magnitudes of life force animation) whole universes -- self-similar fractal zooms gravitational structure of universes -- of quantum and classical physics ultimately reside!

REALTIME NOW is the root 'trunk of the tree' and SPACETIME the branching past-future histories from it. The 'root trunk of the tree' connecting to -- interconnecting with -- the collapsed cosmological constant (/\) Planck (BB) / Big Bang (P) 'Mirror Event Horizon' of all the infinities of horizon universes (The 'Infinite MULTIVERSE Universe')!

The "timeless" ((t=0) the time showing on Hawking's famous 'Clock' overhanging the exact center of his famous "Grand Central Station of the Universe" doesn't run down . . . never runs down, as Einstein discovered during his equally famous "mind's eye trip" to the same SPOL superposition place!!!!

 

[Gibsense]

One cannot change the non-existent.

0=1-1
Nothing is not necessarily nonexistent - ask an accountant - and therefore can be changed. According to Hawking in "The Universe in a Nutshell" the past can be any one of infinite routes to the present. Or, rather all routes to the present.

 

[Gibsense]

Reality is not "taped". You can't go back in time, nor forward. There is no "skipping" forward nor backward.

If we accept that there is a "now" that applies to all things then of course this is true; it means that the universe exists as an instant in the fourth dimension. It is a bit thin I think.
For this to be true does not depend on the first assertion that reality is not taped. There may be a deeper reality. For example, the Quantum level of reality may well exist in the past if it were, say, a 'Landscape' over which the (thin) universe has passed. In this case, the universe does not have a past but a past does exist - for the Quantum Landscape conjectured, if not for the universe. (It always depends on how you might define 'universe'. On this note, I describe it as the 'thin' "now" of COLGeek).

 

[Atlan0001]

If it weren't for time reversal, physics could not exist. Every physical process has initial conditions that are returned to for the process to occur repetitively, and to be able to reoccur all of many times over. Action and reaction, turn and return, set and reset, new and renewal.... The future is the past, the past is the future . . . going for the Space Frontier, as we should be doing, is a returning BACK to the FUTURE, to Frontier.

Without certain aspects of time reversal and Deja vu, we learn nothing from history and physics . . . and repeat all the worst aspects of the past . . . which is still the physics of 'time reversal' -- turning back the clock in the worst ways-- going forward!

 

[Gibsense]

If it weren't for time reversal, physics could not exist. Every physical process has initial conditions that are retuned to for the process to occur repetitively, and to be able to reoccur all of many times over. Action and reaction, turn and return, set and reset, new and renewal.... The future is the past, the past is the future . . . going for the Space Frontier, as we should be doing, is a returning BACK to the FUTURE, to Frontier.

Without certain aspects of time reversal and Deja vu, we learn nothing from history and physics . . . and repeat all the worst aspects of the past . . . which is still the physics of 'time reversal' -- turning back the clock in the worst ways-- going forward!

Time is a process (ref: me). It is a process like, say, walking. You can change direction but still, the process (walking) is positive, not negative.
The direction can be termed negative but not the process. Time is always positive.

NB Letting imagination rip - The past might be visited somehow by transferring to a following timewave (universe) but it will be a different past. (ref: me). So, if you did this you could eliminate an ancestor without consequence to yourself (possibly) but you would eliminate descendants in that visited universe (timewave). In string theory, time loops are postulated at a microscale. Maybe they can be made relevant but string theory is way beyond me.

 

[Atlan0001]

Time is a process (ref: me). It is a process like, say, walking. You can change direction but still, the process (walking) is positive, not negative.
The direction can be termed negative but not the process. Time is always positive.

NB Letting imagination rip - The past might be visited somehow by transferring to a following timewave (universe) but it will be a different past. (ref: me). So, if you did this you could eliminate an ancestor without consequence to yourself (possibly) but you would eliminate descendants in that visited universe (timewave). In string theory, time loops are postulated at a microscale. Maybe they can be made relevant but string theory is way beyond me.

Wrong! It is as Einstein (in his mind's eye trip to the speed of light) and Hawking (in his imagined "Grand Central Station of the Universe" single handed, single digited, 'Clock') saw it! It is zeroed (spontaneously entangled, entangling, concurrent (t=0) REALTIME NOW (t=0) instant) . . . neither positive nor negative)! Only the photo-frames (the photonic holography) of light's coordinate point past-future histories ((t=+1) (t=-1)) SPACETIME have an illusory passage of time to them based on the constant of change (*causality*) (*string's vibration*) (*quantum fluctuations*) (*infinities*). Entropy is always in the process of both building complexities and collapsing them (inexorably preparing dimensional complication building in dimensions for demolition), at one and the same time! But that is a circle into itself, no beginning, no end (the twist of a Mobius Strip of an always perfect ending in endless beginning)!

**

Strong interaction - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

**

 

[Questioner]

Maybe EM phase oscillations are photons nudged back & forth by tachyons transecting the now universe?

Might imply a relatively uniform 'pressure'(?) of tachyons waiting to high dive into the universe's past.

Might even work as a tachyon counter.

The clockwork universe?

 

[karlp295]

Since I was very young I have believed that all three time states may exist. Present, past and future. What if they are all happening right now?

I don't think it's unreal to suggest this. Our consciousness is here in the present but what if the past and the future are just as real as the present seems to us?

They call this the "block universe" theory. It means everything that's ever happened or will happen is already there, kind of like different scenes in a movie.

If the future is already out there, does that mean our choices are set in stone? Or do we still have free will?

 

[Gibsense]

If the future is already out there, does that mean our choices are set in stone? Or do we still have free will?

The function of our universe progressing (into the future) may well be amending what is already there (IMO). So yes, free will within parameters. Of course, restrictions have also been made from the past as well as what might be possible in the future

 

[COLGeek]

The function of our universe progressing (into the future) may well be amending what is already there (IMO). So yes, free will within parameters. Of course, restrictions have also been made from the past as well as what might be possible in the future

This notion seems more philosophical than physical. Almost in terms of one's fate already being determined within certain margins.

 

[Gibsense]

This notion seems more philosophical than physical. Almost in terms of one's fate already being determined within certain margins.

Yes, it is an extension of another 'notion' I have stated -without evidence of any sort- for which I must be humble . However, the idea may be supported by an interpretation of QM that makes sense when I pluck up the courage to have a go at it after some swotting. That idea is that the universe is not the main item 'in everything'. That the universe amends an underlying QM landscape (repeatedly). That is, the universe may be just a tool repeatedly moulding the QM Landscape (as I like to call it). Maybe such posts should be reserved until I can offer something substantive; time will tell.

 

[COLGeek]

Yes, it is an extension of another 'notion' I have stated -without evidence of any sort- for which I must be humble . However, the idea may be supported by an interpretation of QM that makes sense when I pluck up the courage to have a go at it after some swotting. That idea is that the universe is not the main item 'in everything'. That the universe amends an underlying QM landscape (repeatedly). That is, the universe may be just a tool repeatedly moulding the QM Landscape (as I like to call it). Maybe such posts should be reserved until I can offer something substantive; time will tell.

There is also more than a little divine intervention here, as some believe. We should definitely NOT go down that path.

I get the QM notions, but aside from comic book multiverse theories, I don't see that as a viable theory.

I look forward to seeing where you go with this.

 

[Gibsense]

There is also more than a little divine intervention here, as some believe. We should definitely NOT go down that path.

I get the QM notions, but aside from comic book multiverse theories, I don't see that as a viable theory.

I look forward to seeing where you go with this.

Yes, it indeed hints that way if you are of that mind. I agree not to go there. Others can think of their philosophy it's up to them. As the son of a well-meaning preacher, I have spent a lifetime living with early imposed (brainwashed?) morality causing issues for me, good and bad. People can get in a twist. No more to be said; hopefully.

In the meantime...