The Paradox of Cause and effect
Everything we feel, see, smell and taste are inherently linked with our cause and effect relationships. This relationship is so strong that we take it for granted. You fall from a tree you will get hurt. Inevitably you would think twice before climbing a tree
Why do we respect cause and effect relationship so much. This is because of the power of TIME, it’s like this
TIME is supreme; it is the most effective destroyer of lives, Societies, Countries, worlds, universe etc. We dance the cosmic dance with TIME day in and day out.
This is seen in our understanding of our lives. How we grow up, mature, grow old and finally pass on to the other world.
This is seen in many Management Studies. For Example take the PLC (product Life Cycle) it shows us the power of TIME. Attributing the changes to consumer behavior, economic factors et-al is in a micro-view. Since all consumer and economic factors change with TIME.
By the way our views are narrowed down by this illusory aspect of TIME. To illustrate this I would present you with the following experiment.
The Bird and the Stone:
SITUATION 1.
CAUSE
v You have a stone; a bird is sitting on a branch of a tree
v You aim the stone at the bird and throw.
EFFECT
v Your stone misses the target, the bird flies away.
SITUATION 2.
Now imagine that you were throwing the stone at a much higher speed and the bird would react equally fast.
CAUSE
v You aim the stone at the bird and throw with superhuman speed.
EFFECT
v Once again your stone misses the target, the bird flies away with unnatural reflexes.
But this time the TIME span has been greatly reduced between Cause and Effect.
SITUATION 3
Now imagine that you were able to throw the stone at the speed of light and the bird responds at the same unimaginable speed.
CAUSE + EFFECT
v The stone is being thrown spontaneously the bird flies away all at the same instant.
Here we cannot distinguish between the cause and effect.
Now the final piece of the puzzle. Just applying a little bit of reasoning; what we like to call as extrapolation or forecasting based on historical trends.
SITUATION 4
Imagine the speed of stone exceed the speed of light, also the birds reaction is faster than light speed. Now this should happen.
CAUSE
v A Bird flies away from a branch of a tree in your vision.
EFFECT
v Magically a stone arrives at your palms.
v You find yourself striking a pose with the stone in one hand.
And you behave normally ever after!
The Cause and Effect Relationship get reversed. The Laws of our Perception Change but we never notice this since we take this new relationship for granted as we took when the stone was thrown at speeds lesser than the speed of light.
This is the illusion of TIME.
In-fact we can never say whether CAUSE is EFFECT or Visa-a-Versa
Confusing isn’t it. Take this common example which will clarify the point I am making.
Cassette Tape:
It’s like an Old Cassette Tape; remember the times before the CDs and the MP3s when you would have used one. How the song plays on both the side just by reversing the cassette and makes proper music.
Importantly note that the music is proper irrespective of which side the cassette plays.
Some Inferences:
This leads us to the next inference that whether TIME goes forward (CAUSE precedes EFFECT) or TIME goes in rewind (EFFECT precedes CAUSE) it would still make sense to have a dual relationship (EFFECT - CAUSE or CAUSE - EFFECT) whichever way you choose.
And we could not say whether our TIME is going forward or rewind based on any earthly experiments. All our earthly experiments have limited scope since the direction of TIME is our world is same.
Whatever we can measure belongs to the same set of observations; hence we cannot prove the above hypothesis.
Also there is no absolute direction in which TIME flows we can only comprehend relative direction; like If this is forward then opposite is rewind.
A Passing Thought:
Here is an interesting question for the reader to answer:
Could it be possible for TIME to Speed Up? Or Slow Down try to answer this on your own.
The End of TIME:
What if TIME Stops? To think about a TIME STOP is like to think that there is no relationship between cause and effect. Here the Perceptive power of Human’s Vanishes.
We are not capable of deciphering such a situation and we cannot be; since we are designed to live by definite causes and their effects and hence TIME.
It is that instant or should I call it situation when TIME becomes suddenly powerless and causes and effects have the freedom not be associated with each other.
----Bodhi.
posted by Bodhisattwa Ganguly @ 9:00 PM
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