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Monday, March 30, 2020

Living backwards

Time's arrow is one of the most pervasive features of human experience. It completely conditions our outlook. Moment by moment we move from the past into the future. That's the direction of cause and effect. 

But suppose we were dropped into a world where the next day was the day before. We wouldn't remember it because we hadn't experienced it yet. So memory wouldn't be a clue that we were moving into the past. If we went from March 15 to March 14, we'd remember March 15. Psychologically, March 15 would be indistinguishable from the past while March 14 would be indistinguishable from the present or future. 

So at what point would we catch onto to the fact that we were moving backwards in time? Things would age down, so that could be a clue, although that might not be immediately apparent, depending on the rate of change. 

That's assuming we were dropped into a backwards world from a world where time's arrow moves from the past into the future, so that we'd have that prior basis of comparison. But suppose we were never in a world where time's arrow moves from past into the future. Suppose we woke up as adults in a backwards world. That's where our experience begins. That's where our memories begin. That's our only frame of reference. 

Would anything seem incongruous about our experience of time? In that case it might seem natural for things to age down. It might seem natural for cherries to turn into cherry blossoms, then buds. It might seem natural for dead things to come back to life. It might seem natural for flesh wounds to seal up in minutes. It might seem natural for hair to grow shorter. It might seem natural for a broken glass to recombine. It might seem natural for a melted snowman to reconstitute. 

In that respect, certain kinds of miracles are like temporal reversions, by turning back the clock in that particular instance. Not necessarily everything, but a localized effect. Say restoring sight to someone who became blind from an accident or disease. Like going back to a time before the accident or disease took place. 

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