Precognition and Reality Part One
by Robert Pollack
Prologue:
Approximately forty years ago I had a pre-cognitive experience. For that reason and several others, I became
interested in the field of Para-Psychology.
After a while, I began to wonder how such a thing could be. As a life-long puzzle solver I approached the
problem as another puzzle and eventually came to a solution. The purpose of this paper is to convey that
solution to others.
Introduction:
Let us say that you are leading a discussion in a room full of people
and you pose the following question to them.
"A person has a pre-cognitive vision of a bridge collapsing Six months later the bridge collapses exactly
as he envisioned it. When did the bridge
"really" collapse". Then
you ask for a show of hands and ask, " how many believe it collapsed when
he had the vision?" Maybe a few hands will go up. Then you ask, " how many believe it
collapsed when the people standing on the bridge felt it give out from under
them?" Probably the rest of the
people will raise their hands. However,
there is a third possibility. "How
many believe it didn't collapse at either one of those times?" This article will endeavor to explain why it
is this third possibility that is the correct one.
One of the major axioms of physics is that all events are unique. Therefore, the bridge can only collapse
once. So this is a situation where the
same event is being observed at two different times and from two different
perspectives. This is the same scenario
as Einstein's theory of special relativity.
As you may recall, he has one observer on the ground and another
observer is on a train. A ball falls
from the sky and the observer on the train sees it somewhat later than the
observer on the ground because he is moving away from the event. Now, to me the important point is that the
event, the ball dropping, takes place between the two inertial frames and
eventually attaches itself to the inertial frame of the observer on the ground
(discounting the possibility that the ball could fall into an open window on
the train). So now we have the collapse
of the bridge occurring between two different inertial frames before attaching
itself to one of them. So the question
is what are these two inertial frames?
The
only logical possibility is that there are two time lines. One going from what we would call the future
to the past. And the one that we live on
that goes from the past to the future.
These lines are somewhat parallel (explanation forthcoming) in the
Lobachevskian sense; not in the Euclidean sense
At this
point I must digress. To fully
understand what I have to say, we must conjure up an image of the
universe. The best metaphor I can come
up with is that of a giant balloon.
Imagine that all the planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies and
whatever else is out there are all embedded in the surface of a giant
balloon. This balloon keeps expanding
because God keeps blowing air into it.
If memory serves, I once read that the Hindus believe that the universe
expands for about twenty-five billion years before it collapses back on
itself. When the universe stops
expanding, I'm reasonably certain that the effect will be like taking your finger off
the valve stem of a balloon. It
will probably
2
take the universe five hundred million years or less to
collapse back on itself after it stops expanding.
Now when
you draw two non-Euclidean parallel lines on a flat sheet of paper it looks
like the two end infinities are very far apart.
Keeping in mind that the universe is spherical, the two infinities are
actually very close to one another. When
the universe collapses back on itself before the next "big bang" the
two lines converge. At the moment of the
big bang, they diverge. After that they
become "parallel" So now
imagine the balloon where the time line we live on is coming around the front
of the balloon and the other time line is coming around the other side of the
balloon. All things being equal,
eventually these lines would meet and pass each other. However, the balloon
(universe) is constantly expanding so there is always a gap between the two
lines. They never quite catch up to each
other.
So now, let us
return to the collapsing bridge. The
collapse is first witnessed by someone who's consciousness was able to attach
itself to the other timeline. Then it
was witnessed by people attached to our timeline. But the event itself, took place between the
two timelines and eventually attached itself to our timeline. An important point is that there is a gap
between the timelines. So at the time of
the pre-cognitive vision what is going to cause the bridge to collapse has not
yet taken place on either time line.
Consequently, effects are fixed and determinate, but causes are
indeterminate and probabilistic. We can
know what happened with certainty, but we can never know why it happened with
any degree of certainty.
For
example; there are many possible causes
that would lead to the collapse of the bridge.
Let us say that to the on site witnesses it was an overweight truck that
caused the bridge to collapse. In fact,
the bridge had already collapsed before the truck ran over it. So
rather than saying that the truck caused the bridge to collapse, it
would be far more correct to say that the overweight truck was what enabled us
to perceive the fact that the bridge had collapsed.
This also
enables us to understand why "psychically" derived information is of
so little utility. An astute
practitioner may very well be able to "see" you in an auto
accident. That being the case, it is
pointless to avoid automobiles because the accident has already happened and
will eventually manifest itself.
However, what is going to cause the accident hasn't happened yet. Since the chain of events leading to the
accident is still undetermined the best one can hope for is amelioration as
opposed to avoidance.
In conclusion,
we live in a universe where at least in some cases the effect precedes the
cause and it appears that since effects are fixed, there may be multiple chains
of causality which will lead to the same end result.