How Can Psychics Violate Causality

[Eilam]

Hello,

I have been reading a lot about time travel, and with time travel comes problems and paradoxes. However...it seems like the same paradoxes should also apply to divination, clairvoyance, or any other psychic ability that can see into the future.

For example: A professor has a time machine and decides to travel to the future. In the future, there is a mathematical theorem that has not been written yet. He really likes this equation, so he writes it down and takes it back to the past with him. He then publishes the theorem in an academic journal, and that becomes the first time the theorem ever appears, so all future publications on that theorem are based off of his.
So this knowledge just came out of nowhere; since he took it from a publication in the future, and that publication was based off his from the past, but he just wrote it down and didn't actually invent it...the knowledge just materialized from nowhere. This is a violation of causality in terms of physics, because here we have an equation that has no cause or origin.

This is a version of the time travel paradox called the "bootstraps paradox".

That paradox is most often applied to debates about whether or not time travel will be possible, but...wouldn't this also apply to psychics, or anyone who can see the future?

The same thing could apply. Instead of a professor with a time machine copying a theorem from the future, a psychic could peer into the future and copy a theorem as well. And that would be the same violation of causality; you'd have an effect (the theorem) without an original cause (instead of someone doing the work involved in inventing that equation, you just have a loop of people copying it down). But every effect needs a cause.

So my question is...how can divination, clairvoyance, or any other method of peering into the future exist without violating causality?

[CrystalSong]

Because we're not shown things that can cause that sort of paradox, not that we don't run into some pretty freaky stuff, because we do, but it seems to me at least that I'm only shown things in the future that it's in concordance with my path to know. Sometimes too I can access stuff that could mess with things, like seeing closing stock amounts, but then can't do it again. It's like Spirit shows it can be done, so our brains have proof but then retracts that aspect of that ability because we're not in control enough of ego to practice spiritual wisdom.
However as we delve deeper into spirit and merge more we can do all those things but have no desire to do them and also get that if we try to do so, or even change the future or past that there's a nasty after-bite to it.
Ego will do for itself as pleases it, but Spirit gets the whole Butterfly flapping its wings in Japan causing a tsunami in California thing and is content and at peace to let all unfold without hindrance.

I often shake my head in absolute wonder that I've finally learned so much and have so many partially developed tools only to either not be allowed to use them or to have absolutely no desire to do so because nothing needs 'done'. It's fascinating.

Or another ways to say it is our time traveler in your example is operating from the thinking or egoaic mind, he see's something and grabs it for use back in his timeline.
The psychic could also but doesn't because it's not in line with their Path and they see a much bigger picture than personal advancement in the physical realm.

[CrystalSong]

Oh and anyone can see the future, It's a matter of connecting to your Higher Self which has many many abilities that transcend physics and the illusions of the human mind.

However actually transcending the thinking mind and connecting to higher self is much much, much harder than actually seeing the future or past, or alternate Now's or other planets, realms and so on.....lol On of the great irony's.

[Belle]

All this assumes time is linear - which in our perspective it does. But, it may not actually be.

A real conundrum granted but sometimes I think that actually lots of events are occurring at the same time but actually based in different eras.

[wstein]

First, as its currently understood, everything comes out of nowhere. It wasn't there to begin with, and it comes to be. So where did it come from? Just because you can trace the incremental steps to the outcome, does not imply that it came from somewhere, only that it didn't happen all at once.

Second, causality is a local (to this universe) concept.

Third there is evidence that causality is not absolute (as per quantum theory). So if its not an absolute, violating it is not a 'problem'.

Fourth, if you understand anything about engines, you know that the explosions that power them only happen when the cam has turned to the appropriate angle. A running engine is already turning because of the previous explosions. So one might posit the question: if the explosions don't happen until the cam turns and the cam doesn't turn until the explosions happen how could an engine ever run? As should be evident, the engine was started by something else (the starter). Once the turning and firing gets in a steady loop, the starter releases the engine to cycle on its own. There is no violation of causality. What missing in the examples it the initial event of bringing something from the future to the past. That act (or the direct cause of that act) is always initiated in the past. The confusion is that the events play out in a non-linear sequence (through time). Just because that original cause is no longer present, does not mean it didn't happen.

[CrystalSong]

All this assumes time is linear - which in our perspective it does. But, it may not actually be.

A real conundrum granted but sometimes I think that actually lots of events are occurring at the same time but actually based in different eras.

I tend to think of all time as being NOW....mostly that's my experience too, but there was this once that makes me question it....not sure that incident was even in this Universe tho...so maybe other Universes in the multi-verse have different 'operating systems'?
Basically it put me back to square one - I know nothing....still! :confused:

[wstein]

Basically it put me back to square one - I know nothing. Better than square 0 where you don't even realize you know nothing.

[Albalida]

To my understanding, that isn't a paradox. Imagine a man inside a jail cell, being released by his future self. How did his future self get out? Well, when he was his past self, his future self opened the door of his jail cell...

...and, well, that's consistent. We who experience chronological time think that something came from nowhere, but, when you mess with time travel then it works out. It would have been more of a paradox if the man in the jail cell got out some other way, and then went back in time to set himself free. Then that would beg consideration for parallel universes and alternate pasts, and then what?

Suppose that I had a flash of precognition, only that I should hold my breath. A friend of mine jumps out and splashes a bucket of water in my face. There doesn't need to have been a possible future (or possible present) where my friend did that, and I didn't hold my breath, and inhaled water and coughed-- and then sent back the information to my past self that "You should hold your breath."