Robert Arvay wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 2:15 pm
It's just a launching point, introducing a metaphysical conjecture.
Can the past be changed? Why, or why not?
What would be the consequence in either case? (Can the future be changed? If so, then why not the past?)
I am an amateur fiction-writer.
Here is an example of something I wrote on the same theme:
http://thegodparadigmdiscussion.blogspo ... ction.html
.
.
Very nice story indeed, Robert!
To connect this with your post in another thread:
Robert Arvay wrote: ↑Sun May 16, 2021 9:37 pm
I think of time as a brick, in which past, present and future already exist --
except--
the brick is not solid. It is a gel. It does not flow, but it does quiver.
We are what makes it quiver.
Thus, while the future is likely to unfold in predictable ways,
it is not inalterable. Unexpected things can happen, unpredicted and unpredictable.
This may have some parallels in quantum theory,
but not precisely. (Randomness exists, but only within non-random parameters.)
Likewise, the past is not entirely inalterable.
Time has two dimensions, mathematical and experiential.
Thus, the universe began about 13 billion years ago mathematically,
but only about 6,000 years ago experientially, when Adam first perceived.
Because we cannot conceive of timelessness, we can never fully understand time.
As one reaches old age, as I have, he begins to get hints of eternity, but only hints.
Time, or at least some aspects of it, are beyond our comprehension.
-
I think here once again we have to be careful with
implying the Kantian divide -
"Time has two dimensions, mathematical and experiential." Yet we can only be
certain of the experiential. The mathematical is a subset of abstract ideas
within the experiential. We can only
believe that the universe was going on on itself prior to any experience.
Robert Arvay wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 12:17 am
If it were possible to change the past, then reality would be chaotic, because then, the present would change. There are those who say that that is already happening. Think about it. How do you know that yesterday really happened? You remember it, that’s how. But if somehow, yesterday were to change, to become a different version of yesterday, then you would remember only the different version. You would have no clue that it had changed. You would correctly assume that the other yesterday had never really happened, because it didn’t.
We really make a step into reality when we recognize that the above becomes fully comprehensible when we stop looking for 'reality-in-itself' behind the appearances and when we let go the belief that our consciousness is only an experiential phenomenon witnessing these underlying (and unknowable) processes.
This beautifully connects with Ashvin's latest addition
Thinking, Memory and Time (Part II). This is also what I tried to convey in this
metaphor.
Things become very clear when we realize that the only reality we know is the integrative organism of Memory. As I explained in the metaphor, the least misleading way to think about the block universe is to imagine all possible (experiential) states of being as if superimposed one over the other. There's no external clock. The stream of existence is the
gradual integration of states as Memory organism. The process of this integration in the widest sense we can call Thinking or simply - spiritual activity. Every state of being that we experience can be what it is only because of its unique relations to all other countless states of being. You say
"But if somehow, yesterday were to change, to become a different version of yesterday, then you would remember only the different version. You would have no clue that it had changed. You would correctly assume that the other yesterday had never really happened, because it didn’t.". But there's no reason to restrict that it's only yesterday that can change. We can be much more general if we think that all conceivable states of being exist simultaneously and eternally, one within the other. What we experience is
eternal transition between states. We can as well imagine that we transition to
every possible state at every moment. Not only states that fit our own being (as we know it from this life) but states of
any conceivable being, in this world or another, in whatever time. Yet only those states that form
gradient in relation to the previous can be experienced as integration of Memory. So this is key. There's no need for external laws to tell in what direction existence should flow. We might as well imagine that it flows
in all direction at the same time. The block universe of states doesn't simply define worldlines but the 'tip' of any worldline in a sense expands and integrates harmonically a whole domain of other states. This naturally leads us to the idea of 'state at infinity' from whose perspective all conceivable states exist harmonically into the unity of Memory. So this is the needed extension of General Relativity. First we're not speaking of abstract states of the universe independent of consciousness. Second, the worldlines are like expanding vortices, that implode as Memory organism. Difficulties arise only if we insist that we can have some kind of stable identity that is independent of this Memory implosion process. This happens for example if we imagine pure consciousness that is above the Memory process. But the simple fact is that we would never be able to know about [pure] consciousness without this ever-growing Memory process, weaved through Thinking.
It can also be noted that the above gives us proper view of the nature of the Akashic records. All we ever experience is a single state of being - or rather, eternal transition between states. Our history is not something that is recorded 'somewhere'. Our current state of being completely determines the possible histories that can lead to it. We can imagine pictorially this in the following way. Let's picture again all conceivable states of being superimposed on one another, sharing a common center as it were. Let's imagine them as unique sounds, made of complex frequency patterns. Every state is the interference of all other sound-states (obviously that every state also reflects back in all others, so they mutually define each other). Our current state resounds through the state-space and all states that are harmonically attuned ring back in resonance. This leads us to the question: does this mean that there could be alternative histories that lead to our current state? Actually yes, and this is not a surprise as it's already experimentally confirmed in the Quantum Eraser.
The exploration of the Akashic records through higher forms of cognition can be likened to exactly such 'following the resonance' such that we can trace the states of being - not only ours but primarily of higher beings - which are
compatible with our current state. Does this mean that, for example, Pythagoras may have never existed? This is a wrong way to ask the question.
Everything exists. If we imagine that reality didn't exist and it suddenly appears and the 'play' button is pressed in our
current state, does this mean that our childhood didn't happen? This question simply insists that time somehow
separates events in some absolute way (in other words it's the insistence that linear time exists as some absolute reality, which electricshephard called
Addiction to Time as a Super-Structure). This really requires very substantial shift of the habits of mind, but practically
all states of being exist simultaneously - that's what eternity really means. So it's not a question to ask "but did this or that really really really happen?" but it's about finding the relations to the beings. The being of Pythagoras certainly interferes within the tip of our worldline. That's all that matters.
There's a simple rule - we can discern history
as long as it matters. If a given event interferes and shapes our current state such that it makes
difference, than we'll be able to reach through resonance to exactly that event (state of being). If similar to the Quantum Eraser, it makes no difference for our current state if this or that happened, then we'll also experience these events as in
superposition in Akasha. The more we evolve the more the distant events merge again as if in superposition. We can give an example with writing. When we learn to write we draw dashes, lines, circles, etc. When we develop the writing skills they become expression of higher order ideas. Then the learning efforts are slowly merged back into superposition, so to speak. We know that we've went through them but it makes no real difference
exactly how we've drawn each dash. This is not a perfect example (it'll take me too far to explain why) but it makes a certain point. In the
very very far future our whole Earthly evolution, all the details of human history will become irrelevant. As it were, if we look back on the Earthly epoch we would be able to see all possible ways in which that development may have taken place. And we must well understand that it's no that it happened in
one particular way and we simply can't recover it but that in the most real sense it is like it has gone through
all possible ways - all those ways are
compatible with our current (future) state. What will be the extract of the Earthly evolution from that far distant future point of view? It'll be the experience of the awakening of our Macrocosmic Memory integrative process - the Incarnation of our Higher nature will be the thing that remains. Why everything else may turn into superposition of possible experiences but this will not? Because it's the basis for all future evolution, it's the
kernel of the Memory integration which will be with us until sequential time itself becomes irrelevant.
