Are We Remembering the Future?
Some things I have learned about physics in the past few weeks
On Facebook, I recently shared a video that was clearly intended to inspire people to envision the future they want. The video suggested that when we think about the future, we are actually remembering it. It encouraged viewers to choose to remember a preferred future so that it will be more likely to manifest. A couple of my friends who watched the video claimed that it was unscientific and false.
The perspective in which all of reality is only one thing, in which time and space are an illusion, is real and legitimate. I can personally confirm that this perspective is possible because I hold it. Nobody is able to remove my subjective experience of reality, not even me. From this perspective, the idea that, in our illusory existence, our thoughts about the future are actually memories of it, seems totally plausible.
However, this is a very unconventional perspective on reality. The more conventional perspective is that time proceeds from the past to the future, that the past really happened and is knowable, and that the future has not yet happened and is unknowable. From this more conventional perspective, the idea that when we are remembering the future seems preposterous. I totally agree with that assessment because I too can hold the…
