“Well, we all know what Einstein explained to us about time, that it isn’t some fixed entity. There’s no Newtonian Absolute Time. Time shrinks and expands according to one’s frame of reference. But I think we all feel that what Einstein was talking about was the present. What if the past is also malleable?”
“Go on,” you say. “Really, go onnnnn. Of course, the past is fixed; there’s no changing it. As Einstein explained, time’s arrow is unidirectional; otherwise, the universe would fall apart, and you could precede your ancestors.”
“What I mean is that we keep changing the past. Partly, we change it because we realize that the past we thought we knew wasn’t the past that really was. We get details hidden from us intentionally or unintentionally.”
“Explain.”
“Well, take President Kennedy’s Camelot. Wonderful world that. Admired wife. Cute children. Days sailing. Celebrities gathered around bathing in the adulation of adoring fans and crowds. But then we discovered what some knew at the time: Kennedy pretty much used and discarded women, the most famous of which was Marilyn. Not so much a pretty picture of Camelot as the press of the time led the world to believe. Those in the know kept us from knowing the debauchery of the time. And now we know. Sure, it came out not long after the assassination, but not for the great majority of Kennedy fans.
“We have now changed that particular past. And, as we look around today, we see others in the process of changing the past not on the basis of new information about its details, but on the basis of current beliefs and attitudes, definitely on the basis of special interests. So, currently, those with the power to do so, change the past as they desire, not realizing that in some unknown future, others will change what they changed. Rewriting history will never cease, and it will always serve some group.”
“I see. I guess we do change the past. But then, doesn’t that mean that whatever the present is, is not necessarily what it seems?”
“Bingo! Look around. Take almost any current event. In understanding it, what do you have to go on? Sure, there are some matters that occur without nuance and subterfuge, but on the big news-making events, you owe yourself some doubt about their specifics and causes. Unfortunately, we don’t make knowing either the present or the past much of a science. We can’t really run experiments on either, but falsifying, to use Karl Popper’s criterion, what we know isn’t in the picture very often. Scientists can look to falsify their experiments to eliminate errors and correct conclusions. We can’t run the present over again to see if it produces the same result, especially since we really don’t know all the results.
“So, the past is malleable, not because of some principle of spacetime physics, but rather because the frame of reference changes as attitudes and social forces change. We change in the present, and because of our changes, we change the past. We find out, for example, that someone falsely accused someone else of whatever, an indiscretion, a faux pas, even a crime. We realize later that the falsehood could not have been falsified because we couldn’t get the ‘experiment’ reset because the lab was closed to us or because certain information about apparatus or methodology was off limits.
“I could go into the current political arena for examples, but I’d rather just stick to a recent story posted in USA Today.* Here’s part of the report by Tony Plohetski, KVUE: Christopher Precopia was accused of felony burglary and intent to commit other crimes. A former girlfriend said he broke into the house and carved an ‘X’ into her chest. So, the police arrested him and charged him with crimes that could result in 99 years in jail. In the eyes of the press and the eyes of others, he was guilty. The police called him, and he returned their call to leave a message before they arrested him. At that moment Precopia’s past appeared to be fixed, and with it, his future. His parents posted a $150,000 bond, then set about proving his innocence. Seems he had been 65 miles away from the crime scene surrouned by witnesses. Also, he had a time-stamped selfie proving his innocence. But the photo didn’t get to the authorities until nine months after the arrest. Nine months with the past fixed as something it wasn’t: Now it’s a different past. So, what about the potential future? Certainly, Precopia’s time between the arrest and the exoneration changed from what it likely would have been. From that past, all the potential futures changed. And now, that past is changed.
“And the same thing seems to happen all the time. Stories about people circulate, even in newspapers and on news programs. Later, some unknown details surface, and the past changes. But that previous past has already set in motion the present and its potential future. So, a newspaper prints a correction in section 2, page 3 on the lower righthand corner. Who sees it? Who recognizes that the past was changed? Plohetski reports that Precopia wants to move on with his life.”**
“But that doesn’t mean the past has really changed, only that we didn’t know what we didn’t know, as in the case of President Kennedy’s wild flings,” you remark.
“Yes, but what is your philosophy of the past? Is the past fixed by your current knowledge? Or is the past a matter of unalterable events that existed even without your knowing, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Or does the past, any past, lie in the mind, disdained or romanticized as the mind wishes?
“Be careful here. You’re about to step onto ground that might be unstable. If the past is malleable and knowledge derives from it, then what truth is there in what we know? I’m guessing that Washington’s cutting down the cherry tree might be apocryphal. That’s a minor matter, you say, meant to promote Washington’s memory and not meant to have life-altering or nation-altering significance. Maybe. But a bunch of generations grew up with the story, just as a generation associated itself with the Kennedy Camelot stories.
“And what of those who refuse to print retractions to stories they know to be false? They’re influencing the malleable present and altering the future by altering the past. Come to think of it, aren’t most of us most of the time inclined to accept a ‘fixed’ past as it serves our present? And in accepting what we believe to be a ‘fixed’ past, don’t we often fail to recognize that in being ‘fixed,’ the past was or is hammered into shape by those who fixed it or fix it thus?”
*Tony Plohetski, KVUE Published 7:58 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2018 | Updated 9:58 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2018, Online and accessed on November 17, 2018 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/16/selfie-saved-texas-man-99-years-prison/2022832002/
“Go on,” you say. “Really, go onnnnn. Of course, the past is fixed; there’s no changing it. As Einstein explained, time’s arrow is unidirectional; otherwise, the universe would fall apart, and you could precede your ancestors.”
“What I mean is that we keep changing the past. Partly, we change it because we realize that the past we thought we knew wasn’t the past that really was. We get details hidden from us intentionally or unintentionally.”
“Explain.”
“Well, take President Kennedy’s Camelot. Wonderful world that. Admired wife. Cute children. Days sailing. Celebrities gathered around bathing in the adulation of adoring fans and crowds. But then we discovered what some knew at the time: Kennedy pretty much used and discarded women, the most famous of which was Marilyn. Not so much a pretty picture of Camelot as the press of the time led the world to believe. Those in the know kept us from knowing the debauchery of the time. And now we know. Sure, it came out not long after the assassination, but not for the great majority of Kennedy fans.
“We have now changed that particular past. And, as we look around today, we see others in the process of changing the past not on the basis of new information about its details, but on the basis of current beliefs and attitudes, definitely on the basis of special interests. So, currently, those with the power to do so, change the past as they desire, not realizing that in some unknown future, others will change what they changed. Rewriting history will never cease, and it will always serve some group.”
“I see. I guess we do change the past. But then, doesn’t that mean that whatever the present is, is not necessarily what it seems?”
“Bingo! Look around. Take almost any current event. In understanding it, what do you have to go on? Sure, there are some matters that occur without nuance and subterfuge, but on the big news-making events, you owe yourself some doubt about their specifics and causes. Unfortunately, we don’t make knowing either the present or the past much of a science. We can’t really run experiments on either, but falsifying, to use Karl Popper’s criterion, what we know isn’t in the picture very often. Scientists can look to falsify their experiments to eliminate errors and correct conclusions. We can’t run the present over again to see if it produces the same result, especially since we really don’t know all the results.
“So, the past is malleable, not because of some principle of spacetime physics, but rather because the frame of reference changes as attitudes and social forces change. We change in the present, and because of our changes, we change the past. We find out, for example, that someone falsely accused someone else of whatever, an indiscretion, a faux pas, even a crime. We realize later that the falsehood could not have been falsified because we couldn’t get the ‘experiment’ reset because the lab was closed to us or because certain information about apparatus or methodology was off limits.
“I could go into the current political arena for examples, but I’d rather just stick to a recent story posted in USA Today.* Here’s part of the report by Tony Plohetski, KVUE: Christopher Precopia was accused of felony burglary and intent to commit other crimes. A former girlfriend said he broke into the house and carved an ‘X’ into her chest. So, the police arrested him and charged him with crimes that could result in 99 years in jail. In the eyes of the press and the eyes of others, he was guilty. The police called him, and he returned their call to leave a message before they arrested him. At that moment Precopia’s past appeared to be fixed, and with it, his future. His parents posted a $150,000 bond, then set about proving his innocence. Seems he had been 65 miles away from the crime scene surrouned by witnesses. Also, he had a time-stamped selfie proving his innocence. But the photo didn’t get to the authorities until nine months after the arrest. Nine months with the past fixed as something it wasn’t: Now it’s a different past. So, what about the potential future? Certainly, Precopia’s time between the arrest and the exoneration changed from what it likely would have been. From that past, all the potential futures changed. And now, that past is changed.
“And the same thing seems to happen all the time. Stories about people circulate, even in newspapers and on news programs. Later, some unknown details surface, and the past changes. But that previous past has already set in motion the present and its potential future. So, a newspaper prints a correction in section 2, page 3 on the lower righthand corner. Who sees it? Who recognizes that the past was changed? Plohetski reports that Precopia wants to move on with his life.”**
“But that doesn’t mean the past has really changed, only that we didn’t know what we didn’t know, as in the case of President Kennedy’s wild flings,” you remark.
“Yes, but what is your philosophy of the past? Is the past fixed by your current knowledge? Or is the past a matter of unalterable events that existed even without your knowing, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Or does the past, any past, lie in the mind, disdained or romanticized as the mind wishes?
“Be careful here. You’re about to step onto ground that might be unstable. If the past is malleable and knowledge derives from it, then what truth is there in what we know? I’m guessing that Washington’s cutting down the cherry tree might be apocryphal. That’s a minor matter, you say, meant to promote Washington’s memory and not meant to have life-altering or nation-altering significance. Maybe. But a bunch of generations grew up with the story, just as a generation associated itself with the Kennedy Camelot stories.
“And what of those who refuse to print retractions to stories they know to be false? They’re influencing the malleable present and altering the future by altering the past. Come to think of it, aren’t most of us most of the time inclined to accept a ‘fixed’ past as it serves our present? And in accepting what we believe to be a ‘fixed’ past, don’t we often fail to recognize that in being ‘fixed,’ the past was or is hammered into shape by those who fixed it or fix it thus?”
*Tony Plohetski, KVUE Published 7:58 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2018 | Updated 9:58 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2018, Online and accessed on November 17, 2018 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/16/selfie-saved-texas-man-99-years-prison/2022832002/
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