Sometimes, our traditional understanding of the world can be limiting. At Ersatzs, we encourage experimentation with different theories. We believe that theoretical frameworks should be discussed and that it is worthwhile to propose alternative perspectives for understanding the world and how it works. Our critique of the principle of non-contradiction and the idea that it is impossible to divide by zero illustrate our efforts to offer alternative approaches to the study of phenomena. The goal is to achieve an empowering understanding of the world.

We often use validation as a method. In our view, the cosmos follows a constant process of validation, and we observe that many scientists do not recognize this pattern. People may have perceptions of the future through prophetic visions or memories of past events that did not actually occur. Often, scientists dismiss these phenomena as forms of psychosis or memory impairment, although they do not always directly explain this interpretation to their patients.

What seems certain and obvious sometimes deserves to be re-examined. The current position of scientists could be compared to that of the Catholic Church toward Galileo: although it appears logical to some, it may be subject to change. Today, the Catholic Church's view during Galileo's trial has become marginal. We hope to provide an alternative explanation for some observations in this text.

We aim to demystify the temporal notion of causality. We will begin by explaining the current scientific conception of causality. Then, we will examine its opposite, anti-causality. While the past generally causes the present, we will argue that our intentions and plans allow the future to also influence the present.

We call for a revision of the conceptualization of time to show how consciousness transports us from the past to the future and vice versa without our being fully aware of it. What we call "forecasts" could be considered prophecies.

Similarly, "false memories" raise interesting questions about travel between parallel universes. Could we remember alternate pasts that took place in other universes? If so, this suggests the possibility of traveling between dimensions. If we do indeed perceive alternate pasts, then a connection between dimensions would be conceivable.

Let's start.

Causality

To grasp the concept of causality, it is essential to understand the notion of a phenomenon. A phenomenon is simply defined as what is perceptible to our senses. For example, the vast expanse of blue visible when looking up outside is called the sky. The phenomenon here is not the sky itself, but rather the sky as it appears to an observer.

It is important not to confuse a phenomenon with the thing-in-itself as perceived. Indeed, in epistemology, the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon are opposites: the former is imperceptible, while the latter manifests itself to our perception. The thing-in-itself is generally perceived as the cause of the phenomenon, even though this thing-in-itself remains inaccessible to our senses.

The link between the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon is traditionally considered a causal link. But what exactly do we mean by causality? It is often defined as a relationship of dependence between two elements, whether phenomenal or belonging to the category of things-in-themselves. This link implies that the cause is necessary for the effect to exist. During the Enlightenment, the existence of causality was still debated: some affirmed its existence and the existence of necessary links between phenomena, while others contested the necessity of such links.

The Enlightenment debate

There were two main camps debating the issue: let's call them the realists and the empiricists. The former said that causality actually exists, and the empiricists that it is only an idea, but lacking proof of its existence, it would be nothing more than an idea.

Realists were primarily idealists who believed that ideas have a real existence in nature. They are called realists because they believe in a correspondence between ideas and reality. For example, if a person has an idea for a book and is a realist, they believe that their idea of ​​the book corresponds to the book itself. And if this person has the idea of ​​burning it, they wouldn't need to do it to imagine that it would become nothing but a pile of ashes, because they consider the chain of causality, from paper to fire to ashes, to be clearly established. For realists, causality is a real fact, and the interdependence between phenomena truly exists.

For empiricists, causality is an illusion of the mind. Believing only in what they see, they observe merely two successive events without any necessary connection, thus concluding that causality does not exist. For example, although we observe a book burning and turning to ashes, we do not see the process that causes this transformation. The objects are visible, but not their causal relationships.

In a world without causality, links between phenomena are unnecessary. We can make conjectures, such as the statistical fact that a ball moves after being struck by a cue. During the game, a realist sees causality in the movement of the cue ball after it is struck, while an empiricist sees only two successive actions without being able to assert that one causes the other. The cause itself has no form, color, or smell, yet remains intelligible.

The resolution of the debate

The Enlightenment debate on causality found its resolution at the end of the Enlightenment in Immanuel Kant's synthetic position. This position transcended the debate without simply splitting the difference. Kant's solution opened a new field of philosophical exploration, influencing German idealists up to Hegel, thus going beyond the initial debate.

In *Critique of Pure Reason*, the seminal work of Kantian epistemology, two elements are fundamental to all experience: intuition and the understanding. Intuition receives phenomena and provides perceptions, which are then processed by the understanding. In other words, intuition encompasses the senses across the space and time in which sensible phenomena unfold, while the understanding functions like the brain processing this sensory information.

According to Kant, causality is not inherent in nature, contrary to what the idealists believed, but is a category of human understanding. Against the empiricists, Kant argues that causality should not be perceived as a discernible material entity; rather, it is a categorization of our observations. He adopts a realist approach by asserting that causality is indeed real within the subject. It constitutes a pure category of the understanding, a filter through which we comprehend phenomena.

The phenomena appear linked because our cognitive system processes information according to a model of temporal causality: what precedes causes what follows, when there is contact between the two. Thus, we observe the cue ball striking the billiard ball without explicitly perceiving causality, but we register this interaction as a causal link between the cue striking the ball and its subsequent movement. This satisfactory explanation has been widely accepted by many philosophers, to the point that the question of causality is hardly ever raised today.

The prejudice to be studied

There are biases that often go unnoticed. First, the temporal pattern of causality can be questioned and reversed. If the dependency is such that what precedes is necessary for what follows, why couldn't it be the other way around? Why should the direction of this link correspond to our perception?

We perceive phenomena in only one temporal direction because we cannot travel back in time with current technologies, but why does what precedes necessarily cause what follows? We could theoretically experience time in the opposite direction and then assert that what follows causes what precedes. The causal links we observe today could simply result from our current perspective. By experiencing time in reverse, we would reach opposite conclusions regarding cause and effect.

The order of phenomena according to the causal model seems arbitrary: we say that fire causes ashes, and not the other way around, but we always have ashes after the fire. If we assert that x causes y and not the other way around, it is only because x appears before y. First come, first served? This explanation is not satisfactory. The order in which phenomena are perceived is not necessarily the only possible order. It is therefore plausible that future phenomena can cause present phenomena.

Anti-causality

Anticausality would be roughly the same as causality, but in reverse: what follows causes what precedes it. This may seem far-fetched to the average reader, but the very idea of ​​causality seemed far-fetched to empiricists. It would be rather strange to believe in causality but not in anticausality. Why believe in one rather than the other? Let us repeat Wittgenstein's question, adapted to this problem: What would the world look like if we said that the future caused the present? It would look the same, but the explanation of phenomena would be very different. Let us look at some examples of anticausality.

Read the future

First, precognition is defined as the ability to know about events before they occur. This can take the form of "visions" of the future or prophecies. Scientists consider precognition impossible, as it is established that what follows cannot cause what precedes it; thus, a future event could not cause "visions" in the present. However, several accounts of precognition exist, although scientists often attribute them to psychological phenomena or chance.

Another example of anticausality is mental visualization. Before making a shot in billiards, a person might visualize themselves executing it. For scientists, this mental visualization causes the visualized action and constitutes a technique for improving performance. By projecting oneself into the future and seeing oneself perform the intended shot, the chances of acting in accordance with this image increase. This phenomenon raises the question of whether projecting oneself into a future action could be considered a form of precognition. Is it possible that, when visualizing our future actions, we are actually perceiving the future? Is there a method for causing the present from the future?

To cause the present through the future

Yes… that’s exactly what intentions are. First, they occur before the action, but they concern the future of the action (unless one is doing an action for the sake of the action itself, or in other words, when it’s a matter of principle). Much like mental visualization, intentions could actually be a form of precognition. When we try to determine if a crime was intentional, we are trying to determine if it was premeditated. But what is premeditation? While it occurs before the action, premeditation concerns the future. Whereas intentions are what motivates the action (for example, I brush my teeth to avoid cavities), premeditation concerns how (for example, I gonna (I'll brush my teeth tonight before going to bed).

However, the "why?" and "how will I be?" of an action lie in the future. It is because we seek the consequences that we intentionally commit an action. Are intentions, then, past or future? They practically occur. before an action, but in theory still concern theafter, the consequences or the duringThe how, which has not yet happened. If the action succeeds, the consequences align with the intentions, and the loop between past and future is closed. When we act with intentions, we produce the present from the futureThat said, intentionality has a form similar to prophecy: we tell ourselves in advance what will happen later.

Time travel

In this respect, consciousness can be compared to a time machine. Will and memory are two of its temporal faculties: memory allows us to travel to a past we have or have not experienced, while will projects us into the future, choosing a possible future and seeking to realize it in the present.

When an individual recalls past events, depending on their capacity for imagination, they can relive the past with varying degrees of intensity. Depending on the attention they pay to the event they are trying to remember, the reminiscence can be a more or less vivid experience. It is often an accelerated reconstruction of the sensations felt during the initial experience or an intuition of a phenomenon, but during the moment of reminiscence, the impressions can be quite strong.

The same applies to willpower. The more we plan an action or event, the more we formulate "prophecies" that tend to come true. Even if we ourselves carry out the actions necessary to fulfill a prophecy we have formulated, it remains a prophecy. Increased planning leads to causality, where the anticipated future influences the present of the action. For example, organizing a wedding is a major undertaking aimed at orchestrating the actions of several people in advance so that everything unfolds as planned. The verb "to plan" reveals the precognitive dimension present in premeditation and intentions. A wedding that unfolds as planned has already been, in a way, experienced before it is lived: the phenomena that occur during a wedding are not unknown to the bride and groom. If an event seems strange to them, it is because there has been a deviation from the initial plan.

The multiverse

False memories are an interesting phenomenon to study. Scientists tend to discredit these memories and consider them a kind of psychic dysfunction. However, is this truly a scientific approach? First, they label a real phenomenon as false: the person with "false memories" actually recalls certain events that did not occur. Consequently, scientists invalidate not only a real phenomenon but also the individual reporting such memories (which should be given a different name). Simply attributing this to a failure of the memory faculty does not explain this perception; it evades the issue with a simplistic and potentially fallacious explanation.

We propose that memory might also have the capacity to evoke alternative pasts. A person capable of reliving several possible pasts through these alternative memories can, to some extent, travel from one reality to another. Following this hypothesis, it would be conceivable that a person might one day discover that all their memories are erroneous; this realization would occur when those around them, with whom they shared memories, have no recollection of these shared events. We have personally experienced remembering events that our friends had no recollection of, and vice versa.

Is it our memory, or that of our friends, that is faulty? This is the explanation favored by science, as it offers an elegant and effortless answer (for the scientist, there is nothing left to explain). But why adopt the most invalidating and least stimulating explanation? We postulate that when this occurs, it is not a simple defect; rather, it is a kind of desynchronization or multiverse travel. Conceiving of these alternative memories in this way opens the door to new possibilities, implying that we could already be traveling from one universe to another without being aware of it, and that mastering this phenomenon would be enough to move intentionally between universes.

Meteorological conclusions

Discussing the weather involves producing forecasts based on past data, although even real-time data is already in the past. The accuracy of a forecast depends on the future: it's an anti-causal system where past input produces a forecast whose validity is determined by future input. In short, forecasting the weather is a bit like making a prophecy.

Although our forecasts are based on historical data, it's possible that future events could influence the present. Various empirical indicators are often cited in meteorology: for example, when the wind exposes the undersides of tree leaves, this could indicate impending rain. Similarly, some people report experiencing joint pain before a downpour. Whether it's the exposure of the undersides of leaves or knee pain, why couldn't we consider these present signs to be caused by future rain?

It is certainly possible to formulate alternative theories to explain these phenomena without resorting to anti-causality. In reality, causality is an irrefutable theory: no experience or phenomenon can contradict the idea that the past causes the future. We can always interpret events in such a way that what happens before is the cause of what follows. Since we are basing science on irrefutable foundations, we might as well fully exploit their potential!

It is time to conduct fundamental research that challenges our intuitions. If nature still holds mysteries and unanswered questions, we must re-examine our certainties. Terms like psychosis, schizophrenia, or memory deficits leave us unsatisfied with current scientific explanations. This will be the subject of the next article.