This topic kept coming to light after reading this September 2002 issue of Scientific American. Now I can’t get over it.
[The particular article in question cannot be read on the web without it being purchased. It is called “That Mysterious Flow” by Paul Davies.]
It goes on to talk about the manner in which humans observe time, and the inherent nature of time itself. Regailing Einsteins special theory of relativity, it talks about how one specific point, if viewed from two different reference frames will give two different times (hence time is relative).
It went on to talk about the concept of “block time” - that is, how physicists view time in the same way as a geographic landscape (called a “timescape”) and that all events are located on this “timescape”.
Does this mean that all the aforementioned events were all pre-ordained (they had to occur)?
It talks also about quantum mechanics, and the fact that though QM does tell us the relative probabilities of an event occuring (on the quantum scale - the example given was an electron bouncing off an atom and the relative directional paths it could choose), it does not tell us of the actual path the event will follow.
The writer suggests perhaps it is the “act of observation” that prompts nature to “make up its mind”…
In that case, we are in control of our own destiny and everything that happens to us?
This article fascinated me - not only for the information given but the numerous implications that it makes.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Did you read the article?
If a physicist, what are your thoughts upon the occurence of events, and how they are determined?
What do you think?