retrocausal factor

English translation: a factor due to or involving time-reversed causality

10:06 Aug 31, 2017
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Social Sciences - Psychology
English term or phrase: retrocausal factor
Toward understanding the place effect: Investigating a possible retrocausal factor
Andreea
Selected answer:a factor due to or involving time-reversed causality
Explanation:
Retrocausality (or retro-causality) is a very strange idea to our conventional way of thinking. Normally we think that if event A causes event B, event B must occur after event A: causality only works forward in time; the present can only influence the future, not the past. Retro-causality is the idea that the present influences or can influence the past: event B can cause, or at least influence, an earlier event A. It is time-reversed causality: causality working backwards, not forwards, in time.

In the article whose title you have quoted (in which "the place effect" should read "the placebo effect"), the authors define "retrocausal" in their abstract:

"This experiment tested whether some placebo effects may also involve retrocausal, or time-reversed, influences."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17931066

The investigators claim to have found evidence of a statistically significant relationship between randomised events and brain patterns before that event. The idea, then, is that that relationship is retro-causal, because the event is influencing what happened before it.

Here is a relatively comprehensible explanation of retro-causality:
https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/retrocausality-can-the-...
Selected response from:

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 20:58
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
4 +4a factor due to or involving time-reversed causality
Charles Davis


  

Answers


1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +4
a factor due to or involving time-reversed causality


Explanation:
Retrocausality (or retro-causality) is a very strange idea to our conventional way of thinking. Normally we think that if event A causes event B, event B must occur after event A: causality only works forward in time; the present can only influence the future, not the past. Retro-causality is the idea that the present influences or can influence the past: event B can cause, or at least influence, an earlier event A. It is time-reversed causality: causality working backwards, not forwards, in time.

In the article whose title you have quoted (in which "the place effect" should read "the placebo effect"), the authors define "retrocausal" in their abstract:

"This experiment tested whether some placebo effects may also involve retrocausal, or time-reversed, influences."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17931066

The investigators claim to have found evidence of a statistically significant relationship between randomised events and brain patterns before that event. The idea, then, is that that relationship is retro-causal, because the event is influencing what happened before it.

Here is a relatively comprehensible explanation of retro-causality:
https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/retrocausality-can-the-...

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 20:58
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 32
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Alexandranow
2 hrs
  -> Many thanks!

agree  Tina Vonhof (X): Very interesting, haven't quite wrapped my mind around it yet.
1 day 5 hrs
  -> Thanks, Tina :) Neither have I; it sounds pretty bizarre. Something to do with quantum effects, maybe?

agree  Jörgen Slet: :o
2 days 1 hr
  -> Thanks, Jörgen :)

agree  acetran
7 days
  -> Thanks, acetran :)
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