APPENDIX Z50: “Backward Causation”
Published on 24 Jun 2016 at 2:15 pm.
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APPENDIX Z50:
“Backward Causation”
( meaning, the FUTURE impacting the PAST )
[ support for the “bootstrap” component of Summa’s metaphysics ]
“Quantum Mechanics Could Permit
a Subtle Form of Teleology”
“Crazy though the idea
may seem at rst, there is in fact
may seem at rst, there is in fact
no fundamental impediment to a mechanism that allows
later events to inuence
earlier events. In fact, there are
earlier events. In fact, there are
some famous theories of
physics that explicitly involve
physics that explicitly involve
backward causation – future events having causative
power over past events.
Wheeler proposed one such
Wheeler proposed one such
theory with his then
student Richard Feynman in the mid-
student Richard Feynman in the mid-
1940s. In the Wheeler-Feynman
theory of electrodynamics,
theory of electrodynamics,
electromagnetic interactions
can travel both forward and
can travel both forward and
backward in time.
There is no experimental evidence in
There is no experimental evidence in
favor of the theory, I hasten to add. Something similar
was proposed for
gravitation by Hoyle and Narlikat, and
gravitation by Hoyle and Narlikat, and
for quantum cosmology by
Gell-Mann and Hartle and by
Gell-Mann and Hartle and by
Hawking. Again, observation and experiment are silent on
these ideas, but the
theories are certainly not ‘antiscientic,’
theories are certainly not ‘antiscientic,’
and variants of them
are still being investigated today.”*…
are still being investigated today.”*…
* Cosmologist Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma. United Kingdom: Little, First
Mariner Books edition. 2008. pp. 242-243
