Quantum history is linguistic slippage

(Andrew W., PoliSci@Madison, Our place in the universe: Alexander Wendt and

quantum mechanics International Theory (2022), 14 (1), 130–145 doi:10.1017/S1752971921000063)

In chapter 10, we complete the trilogy by moving on to experience. Here, Wendt chooses to focus on a rather curious debate about whether we can change the past. Apparently, a debate exists in the philosophy of history about whether this is possible. A minority realist camp argues that we can’t, while a majority view holds that we can change our interpretation of the past: the epistemological view. The radical fringe (the ontological view) holds that we can change the actual past, although they still seem to be talking about how we understand the past rather than about what actually happened. For instance, in May of 1945 World War II comes to an end, and so the war that began in Europe in 1939 becomes a 6 year war rather than a war of indefinite duration, as it was before. Wendt, again drawing on the delayed choice idea, argues that the past actually still exists in our minds, in that particles in our minds are entangled with particles in the past. By changing our memory, therefore, we change the past in the same way that putting the detector in the path of the photon causes it to take a certain path in the past. This strikes me as a rather metaphorical use of the concept of entanglement, a pattern that will become increasingly common in the chapters to come. Wendt seems reluctant to argue that we can really go back and assassinate Hitler, for instance, merely that we reinterpret the past in light of new ideas or events. This seems entirely compatible with the epistemological approach, which in turn needs nothing from quantum theory. And for someone like Wendt who places such store on introspection, the past certainly seems unchangeable despite the human tendency to reinterpret, distort, and outright lie about it. Plenty of people have wanted to change the past. I haven’t met anyone who has succeeded.