Destiny is a Real Thing (Scientifically Speaking)

What if we could change the past? We may be able to, but watch out for destiny.

As seen in Psychology Today

With the Pandemic of the last 2 years nearly in the rear-view mirror, academics and researchers alike are pondering the short- and long-term effects on people, especially in the area of mental health.[1]  Because the routines of daily life were so extremely disrupted for so many, and the duration of the pandemic was so much longer than originally anticipated, part of the discussion naturally focuses on people’s relationship to time.  How did their personalities change as a result of the two-year disruption?[2]  What is the impact of loss of hope as a result of the pandemic on how people interact?[3]

These questions are of particular importance for those who experienced the often-horrendous consequences of the pandemic, such as losing jobs, homes, livelihoods and loved ones forever.   From workers who quit their jobs in the Great Resignation to homeowners who purchased homes in a panic, regret is on the mind of many Americans.   Virtually no one was untouched in some material way by the disruption of daily life caused by the pandemic, and they want to change it. 

What if we could travel back in time, to revisit past memories and do thing differently, to put broken lives back together?  Could we use that to try to make our lives better now? 

Time travel remains theoretically possible.  For instance, Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggests the possibility of ”closed time like curves” where a moving wormhole which someone entered would deposit them at a different place in space time, theoretically allowing them to travel back in time and interact with their own past.  But the fly in the ointment is a theory called the grandfather paradox which would limit someone from changing the past in material ways.  It goes like this:  if you went back in time and killed your own grandparent then you wouldn’t be here today to have gone back in the first place.  And for our pandemic-changed lives, if you went back in time and stopped someone from being infected and dying, then it would change the motivation you feel today to go back in time and prevent the infection, or the pandemic entirely, in the first place.

But a new scientific theory offers a counter view.  Researchers now suggest that if time travel were a reality, people going back in time could make changes.   They could stop the infection from occurring in their loved one, maybe even stop the pandemic entirely.[4]  Wouldn’t that be great?  We could go back and make the world a better place?   As it turns out, probably not.  The research goes on to suggest that the events which occur would likely unfold in much the same way, even if we went back to change the past.  In other words, someone could go back and make changes, but outcomes like loved ones dying in the pandemic would still occur.  They may not occur in precisely the same way they originally happened, but events would be similar enough so that the person going back in time would still exist to go back in the first place.    So, if you’re here today to go back in time, then you would also exist in the changed version of time.  But if you’re not here today because you died in the past, then you would not be here to be able to be saved if the events of your life were changed.  This is because the Universe may be deterministic.  Determinism is the theory that there is a cause-and-effect relationship among all events in the universe which result in this moment now. Even if you were able to go back in time and alter the past, you would essentially have the same life you have today, as would your loved ones and the world.  This is because each of us, through our choices and actions, brings into being the events of this moment, meaning that changes made in the past won’t dramatically change the present or the future. 

Maybe Einstein was right when he famously said, “God doesn’t play dice.”  What he meant by that is the laws of Newtonian physics do not give way to the law of chance or the principle of uncertainty as implied by quantum theory. In Newtonian physics, if someone could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe for every moment, then they would be able to predict all of interactions for the rest of time because they would be pre-determined.  Someone would just need to have enough information to figure it out.   On the other hand, quantum mechanics suggests the opposite.  According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, no one can observe a subatomic particle and know both where it is now and where it’s going in the future at the same time. The more accurately they try to do this, the more uncertain they make either its position or its velocity.  The best someone could do is calculate probabilities.  But these new theories blow uncertainty out of the water because events adjust around you.  The view that everything is as it should be for you, no matter how painful, may be how the universe actually works.   So, if you have regrets, forget them.  Your life would pretty much have turned out the way it is now.   At least for the time being, personal destiny is a real thing.


[1] “COVID-19 and Your Mental Health”, Mayo Clinic, accessed on 12-09-22 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/mental-health-covid-19/art-20482731

[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274542

[3] https://www.nlc.org/article/2020/06/29/covid-exacerbates-loss-of-hope-solution-in-leading-causes-of-life/

[4] “Reversible dynamics with closed time-like curves and freedom of choice,” Germain Tobar and Fabio Costa, Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 37, Number 20, 21 September 2020 accessed on November 14, 2022  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342860481_Reversible_dynamics_with_closed_time-like_curves_and_freedom_of_choice

Subscribe To The Newsletter

Top Posts

Order Your Copy Today

“When you shift your experience of time, you create a whole new life which transends clockfaces.  Once you’re liberated from the illusion that time is your enemy, you’ll embrace time as an ally so you can have all the time in the world to do what is yours to do.” 

Lisa Brockerick

More Articles

Lisa Broderick

The Modern Dark Ages: Brought to Us by Social Media

Have you noticed the backlash against “experts” lately? And it’s not just the US, it’s worldwide. The President said it succinctly during the election, and what he said may be big reason he was elected: “What if I didn’t use experts?” So where did we go wrong as a country? When did education and experience

Read More »
Lisa Broderick

Using Totems to Create Reality

Some time ago, a young client called me whose company I have been helping to grow over the last 18 months. Their growth has been spectacular and it looks like they will be bought by a much bigger company—a dream of his we have been working on. He wanted advice about how to remain focused

Read More »
Lisa Broderick

Perceptions of Time

In this podcast we talk about how to deal with time and how we can change our perceptions of time.  We talk about how my book talks about the perceptions of time from a spiritual perspective and scientific perspective.   We go into how the now and future influence the past, to the now, to the

Read More »

Copyright © 2021 All The Time In The World