Thursday, August 24, 2023

Future changes Past: Retro-causality (video)

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Ben Miles (video), 3/26/23

Snoopy gives good advice.
(Dr Ben Miles) Retro-causality, a mind-blowing quantum concept, proposes that future events impact the past, challenging time's traditional [forward only] flow and exploring interconnected temporal relationships. Can the universe communicate with its past-self? [Isn't it always communicating with its past-self due to the interdependence of all things? There's only ever this moment. So "be here now." Live in the present because it's the only place we have any power.]
  • 0:00 What is retrocausality?
  • 00:55 The layers of the universe
  • 02:17 The universe is not real
  • 04:32 The role of quantum entanglement
  • 08:02 Does time travel explain the mysteries of the universe?
The future affects the past? Effects determine the meaning of the cause?
[Does the tail wag the smiling dog or does the smiling dog wag the tail?] (Thich Nhat Hanh)
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The Buddha was the wisest of all wise people.
Does the future "create" the past or the meaning of the past? Of course it does! It's clear, no matter how counter-intuitive it is or how much we are told by standard gatekeeper university science that that's preposterous.

But think of all the ways in which this is true. This is even more true than one would have thought by lived experience. Mitch Horowitz quoted the cutting-edge experiments of one scientist who concluded that one could study or practice in the future to benefit in the present (which in the future will be the past). The future will change the past? Poppycock!

The wisdom of the Buddha's Dhammapada
He was crucified for such counterintuitive and backwards thinking. Horowitz waited, and a decade later that first work had been confirmed, statistically demonstrated, and backed by a meta study (which aggregates and analyzes the statistics of many studies to avoid bias in any single study). Now it's confirmed science.

But it was true -- and we could see that retro-causality was true -- in a much simpler way. What does anything mean except how we look back on it? The present is very brief, the future never arrives, but the past is massive, long-lasting, and always growing. We run out of a future, but we always have the past. In any case, these are arbitrary imposed categories for the reality of the "eternal now," just the way we divide and label it.

The wise old farmer
I wish I could be as wise as that old Chinese farmer who had such a good outlook on life.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald: Be whatever.
Think of the famous Chinese story of the wise old farmer. One day his son is thrown from his horse, breaks his leg, and is unable to do any fieldwork. His neighbors come around the house snickering, saying how sorry they are and asking the old farmer if he doesn't think it's a great pity.

Who can say, who can say? the old man answers almost optimistically.
The next day the military sweeps through the town and forcibly inducts all able-bodied young men. The old farmer's neighboring come to him crying, "Oh, our sons! Our sons! You're so lucky yours has that broken leg and wasn't taken away, aren't you?"

Alcoholic? (Kirk Franklin)
"Who can say, who can say?" the old farmer says somewhat pessimistically.

The next day the old farmer's barn catches on fire, and without the help of his son, who's leg is still broken and keeping him in bed, he is unable to extinguish the fire.

The neighbors return, snickering and saying what a pity it is his son couldn't help, asking the old farmer if he sees now how terrible it is that his son's leg is broken.

Lao Tzu, like Socrates, had something to say.
"Who can say, who can say?" the old farmer says somewhat optimistically.

The next day...and on and on. He well knows the meaning of what happened in the past (his son's broken leg) has no fixed meaning. It is given that meaning by what happens in the future. The future dictates the MEANING of the past, as much or more than it works the other way around.

What do we actually see in the present as we move into the future? Only the past
This is what we are taught is happening with time. We steer facing the future and "look ahead." This is NOT what's happening. It's a bad analogy we've accepted without thinking for ourselves. Time IS moving that way. But we are looking backwards, only able to see the past.
As the arrow (or boat) of time carries us forward into the future, which way are we facing?
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This is happening: We row only looking back.
Time is not really going in an arrow from left to right as we are taught by our culture. Another better culture was discovered by anthropologists that is so backward, it thinks it's the other way around.

How does time work in our imagination? It is like a boat, and we are sitting at the helm looking forward.

"May the bridges I burn light the way."
The future is ahead of us, the past behind us, and we are moving in the present. This is all wrong. And that other culture knows it, takes it for granted, and their language and their whole view of the world (paradigm) reflects it. Think about it.

In their imagination, the future is ahead, we are in the present looking backward at the past. As the boat moves forward into the future, the captain at the helm doesn't see the future at all. All that person sees is the past coming into sharp relief, where s/he has been.

Native Wisdom is ancient genius
The past is ever expanding and broadening (coming into view); the future is a mystery that cannot be seen at all until it comes into view IN THE PAST, behind the boat, in the wake we are staring at for guidance (e.g., doing what we have done before to get a desired outcome).

The person at the helm is steering the boat, but it's very difficult to know where to steer it (and get it to go where one would want it to go) without being able to see what's ahead, working ONLY with what's behind.

Abraham-Hicks brought us Law of Attraction
The present isn't much help, except for the fact that we only have the present to influence the boat and see what's immediately happening. We base the influence we exert on our direction on what we see coming into the most recent past (i.e., the present). It's strange but completely obvious once we are undeceived as to what's really been happening all along. That culture has it right, we have it wrong.

I found it's called "nirvana"
Add to this the fact that we have natural precognition (innate psychic ability) -- but it's not always right or reliable -- and we can see how human life (having lost most of our deva powers as we've devolved through the ages (rather than evolved and gotten better).

Our deva/divine powers deteriorate. Average lifespan shortens over the long term (even as it grows and shrinks in the short term) in the Kali Yuga (Dark and Declining Age) and later grows longer in the coming "Golden Age" or Sattva Yuga, cycles within cycles (as explained by the Buddha in the Agganna Sutta or "The Knowledge of Beginnings Discourse/A Buddhist Genesis").

A great quote
Why is this quote by C.S. Lewis true? Because it is always the beginning of the rest of our lives, and we are always in a position to start and therefore in a position to change the (ending) future. It's a matter of perspective. And with the direction of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Awakened Sangha (the Guide, the Guidance, and the Successfully Guided), it can be done!
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Can we change the future?
There is a great quote, one of the world's best, that runs something like: "We cannot change the past, but in the future there's still a chance of it all working out."

It isn't the past that needs changing. The FUTURE will give the PAST its meaning retro-causally. Here's the actual quote by C. S. Lewis: "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."
  • In concrete terms: Buy a stock or precious metal. Will having bought it in the PAST for that price cause a profit or a loss? Only the FUTURE can determine that.
It means the future will impact the past; tomorrow will determine the meaning of yesterday. (WHEN will we know it? Only ever in the present). [But I knew it in the past. Yes, but at that time, the "past" was the present, and THIS was still the future. Oh, yes, of course. Wait, what? There's only now.]
What time is it? No, what time is it really? It's always only NOW.  When do we have power?
'Let [that sh*t] go' (the Buddha)
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At the very least, seek Truth (ultimate Truth), and it will be possible to find comfort.

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