October 26, 2023

It is wrong to think of that past as "already existing" in all detail. The "past" is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present. By deciding what questions our quantum registering equipment shall put in the present we have an undeniable choice in what we have the right to say about the past.

What we call reality consists of a few iron posts of observation between which we fill in by an elaborate papier-mâché construction of imagination and theory.

Spacetime in the prequantum dispensation was a great record parchment. This sheet, this continuum, this carrier of all that is, was and shall be, had its definite structure with its curves, waves, and ripples; and on this great page every event, like a glued down grain of sand, had its determinate place.

In this frozen picture a far-reaching modification is forced by the quantum. What we have the right to say of past spacetime, and past events, is decided by choices of what measurements to carry out made in the near past and now.